From  a  drawing  by  J.    B.   Potter 

HENRY    ADAMS 

EDITOR   OF   THE   NORTH   AMERICAN    REVIEW 
1873-1870 


University  of  California  •  Berkeley 
From  the  Bequest 

of 
DOROTHY  K.  THOMAS 


THE    EDUCATION 


OF 


HENRY    ADAMS 


THE    EDUCATION 


OF 


HENRY    ADAMS 


WASHINGTON 

1907 


PREFACE 


Jean  Jacques  Rousseau  began  his  famous  Confessions  by  a  vehement  appeal 
to  the  Deity:  —  "I  have  shown  myself  as  I  was;  contemptible  and  vile  when  I 
was  so ;  good,  generous,  sublime  when  I  was  so ;  I  have  unveiled  my  interior 
such  as  Thou  thyself  hast  seen  it,  Eternal  Father !  Collect  about  me  the  innum 
erable  swarm  of  my  fellows ;  let  them  hear  my  confessions ;  let  them  groan  at 
my  unworthiness ;  let  them  blush  at  my  meannesses !  Let  each  of  them  discover 
his  heart  in  his  turn  at  the  foot  of  thy  throne  with  the  same  sincerity ;  and  then 
let  any  one  of  them  tell  thee  if  he  dares :  —  'I  was  a  better  man ! ' ' 

Jean  Jacques  was  a  very  great  educator  in  the  manner  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  and  has  been  commonly  thought  to  have  had  more  influence  than  any 
other  teacher  of  his  time;  but  his  peculiar  method  of  improving  human  nature  has 
not  been  universally  admired.  Most  educators  of  the  nineteenth  century  have 
declined  to  show  themselves  before  their  scholars  as  objects  more  vile  or  contempt 
ible  than  necessary,  and  even  the  humblest  teacher  hides,  if  possible,  the  faults 
with  which  nature  has  generously  embellished  us  all,  as  it  did  Jean  Jacques, 
thinking,  as  most  religious  minds  are  apt  to  do,  that  the  Eternal  Father  himself 
may  not  feel  unmixed  pleasure  at  our  thrusting  under  his  eyes  chiefly  the  least 
agreeable  details  of  his  creation. 

As  an  unfortunate  result  the  twentieth  century  finds  few  recent  guides  to 
avoid,  or  to  follow.  American  literature  offers  scarcely  one  working  model  for 
high  education.  The  student  must  go  back,  beyond  Jean  Jacques,  to  Benjamin 
Franklin,  to  find  a  model  even  of  self-teaching.  Except  in  the  abandoned  sphere 
of  the  dead  languages,  no  one  has  discussed  what  part  of  education  has,  in  his 
personal  experience,  turned  out  to  be  useful,  and  what  not.  This  volume  attempts 
to  discuss  it. 

As  educator,  Jean  Jacques  was,  in  one  respect,  easily  first ;  he  erected  a 
monument  of  warning  against  the  Ego.  Since  his  time,  and  largely  thanks  to 

v 


vi  PREFACE 

him,  the  Ego  has  steadily  tended  to  efface  itself,  and,  for  purposes  of  model, 
to  become  a  manikin  on  which  the  toilet  of  education  is  to  be  draped  in  order  to 
show  the  fit  or  misfit  of  the  clothes.  The  object  of  study  is  the  garment, 
not  the  figure.  The  tailor  adapts  the  manikin  as  well  as  the  clothes  to  his 
patron's  wants.  The  tailor's  object,  in  this  volume,  is  to  fit  young  men,  hi 
Universities  or  elsewhere,  to  be  men  of  the  world,  equipped  for  any  emergency ; 
and  the  garment  offered  to  them  is  meant  to  show  the  faults  of  the  patchwork 
fitted  on  their  fathers. 

At  the  utmost,  the  active-minded  young  man  should  ask  of  his  teacher  only 
mastery  of  his  tools.  The  young  man  himself,  the  subject  of  education,  is  a  certain 
form  of  energy ;  the  object  to  be  gained  is  economy  of  his  force ;  the  training  is 
partly  the  clearing  away  of  obstacles,  partly  the  direct  application  of  effort.  Once 
acquired,  the  tools  and  models  may  be  thrown  away. 

The  manikin,  therefore,  has  the  same  value  as  any  other  geometrical  figure 
of  three  or  more  dimensions,  which  is  used  for  the  study  of  relation.  For  that 
purpose  it  cannot  be  spared ;  it  is  the  only  measure  of  motion,  of  proportion,  of 
human  condition ;  it  must  have  the  air  of  reality ;  must  be  taken  for  real ;  must 
be  treated  as  though  it  had  life;  —  Who  knows?  Possibly  it  had! 


February  16,  1907. 


THE    EDUCATION 


OF 


HENEY    ADAMS 


CHAPTER    I 

1838-1848 

Under  the  shadow  of  Boston  State  House,  turning  its  back  on  the 
house  of  John  Hancock,  the  little  passage  called  Hancock  Avenue  runs, 
or  ran,  from  Beacon  Street,  skirting  the  State  House  grounds,  to  Mount 
Vernon  Street,  on  the  summit  of  Beacon  Hill ;  and  there,  in  the  third 
house  below  Mount  Vernon  Place,  February  16,  1838,  a  child  was 
born,  and  christened  later  by  his  uncle,  the  minister  of  the  First 
Church  after  the  tenets  of  Boston  Unitarianism,  as  Henry  Brooks  Adams. 

Had  he  been  born  in  Jerusalem  under  the  shadow  of  the  Temple, 
and  circumcised  in  the  Synagogue  by  his  uncle  the  high  priest,  under  the 
name  of  Israel  Cohen,  he  would  scarcely  have  been  more  distinctly  branded, 
and  not  much  more  heavily  handicapped  in  the  races  of  the  coming 
century,  in  running  for  such  stakes  as  the  century  was  to  offer ;  but, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  ordinary  traveller,  who  does  not  enter  the  field  of 
racing,  finds  advantage  in  being,  so  to  speak,  ticketed  through  life,  with 
the  safeguards  of  an  old,  established  traffic.  Safeguards  are  often  irksome, 
but  sometimes  convenient,  and  if  one  needs  them  at  all,  one  is  apt  to  need 
them  badly.  A  hundred  years  earlier,  such  safeguards  as  his  would  have 
secured  any  young  man's  success  ;  and  although  in  1838  their  value  was 
not  very  great  compared  with  what  they  would  have  had  in  1738,  yet  the 


2  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

mere  accident  of  starting  a  twentieth-century  career  from  a  nest  of  associ 
ations  so  colonial, — so  trogloditic, — as  the  First  Church,  the  Boston  State 
House,  Beacon  Hill,  John  Hancock  and  John  Adams,  Mount  Vernon 
and  Quincy,  all  crowding  on  ten  pounds  of  unconscious  babyhood,  was  so 
queer  as  to  offer  a  subject  of  curious  speculation  to  the  baby  long  after  he 
had  witnessed  the  solution.  What  could  become  of  such  a  child  of  the 
seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries,  when  he  should  wake  up  to  find  him 
self  required  to  play  the  game  of  the  twentieth?  Had  he  been  consulted, 
would  he  have  cared  to  play  the  game  at  all,  holding  such  cards  as  he  held, 
and  suspecting  that  the  game  was  to  be  one  of  which  neither  he  nor  anyone 
else  back  to  the  beginning  of  time  knew  the  rules  or  the  risks  or  the  stakes  ? 
He  was  not  consulted  and  was  not  responsible,  but  had  he  been  taken  into  the 
confidence  of  his  parents,  he  would  certainly  have  told  them  to  change  nothing 
as  far  as  concerned  him.  He  would  have  been  astounded  by  his  own  luck. 
Probably  no  child,  born  in  the  year,  held  better  cards  than  he.  Whether 
life  was  an  honest  game  of  chance,  or  whether  the  cards  were  marked  and 
forced,  he  could  not  refuse  to  play  his  excellent  hand.  He  could  never 
make  the  usual  plea  of  irresponsibility.  He  accepted  the  situation  as 
though  he  had  been  a  party  to  it,  and  under  the  same  circumstances  would 
do  it  again,  the  more  readily  for  knowing  the  exact  values.  To  his  life  as 
a  whole  he  was  a  consenting,  contracting  party  and  partner  from  the 
moment  he  was  born  to  the  moment  he  died.  Only  with  that  under 
standing, — as  a  consciously  assenting  member  in  full  partnership  with  the 
society  of  his  age, — had  his  education  an  interest  to  himself  or  to  others. 

As  it  happened,  he  never  got  to  the  point  of  playing  the  game  at  all ; 
he  lost  himself  in  the  study  of  it,  watching  the  errors  of  the  players ;  but 
this  is  the  only  interest  in  the  story,  which  otherwise  has  no  moral  and 
little  incident.  A  story  of  education, — seventy  years  of  it, — the  practical 
value  remains  to  the  end  in  doubt,  like  other  values  about  which  men  have 
disputed  since  the  birth  of -Cain  and  Abel;  but  the  practical  value  of  the 
universe  has  never  been  stated  in  dollars.  Although  everyone  cannot  be 
a  Gargantua-Napoleon-Bismarck  and  walk  off  with  the  great  bells  of 
Notre  Dame,  everyone  must  bear  his  own  universe,  and  most  persons  are 
moderately  interested  in  learning  how  their  neighbors  have  managed  to 
carry  theirs. 

This  problem  of  education,  started  in  1838,  went  on  for  three  years, 


QUINCY  3 

while  the  baby  grew,  like  other  babies,  unconsciously,  as  a  vegetable,  the 
outside  world  working  as  it  never  had  worked  before,  to  get  his  new 
universe  ready  for  him.  Often  in  old  age  he  puzzled  over  the  question 
whether,  on  the  doctrine  of  chances,  he  was  at  liberty  to  accept  himself  or 
his  world  as  an  accident.  No  such  accident  had  ever  happened  before  in 
human  experience.  For  him,  alone,  the  old  universe  was  thrown  into  the 
ash-heap  and  a  new  one  created.  He  and  his  eighteenth-century,  trogloditic 
Boston  were  suddenly  cut  apart, — separated  forever, — in  act  if  not  in  senti 
ment,  by  the  opening  of  the  Boston  and  Albany  Railroad ;  the  appearance  of 
the  first  Cunard  steamers  in  the  bay ;  and  the  telegraphic  messages  which 
carried  from  Baltimore  to  Washington  the  news  that  Henry  Clay  and 
James  K.  Polk  were  nominated  for  the  Presidency.  This  was  in  May, 
1844 ;  he  was  six  years  old ;  his  new  world  was  ready  for  use,  and  only 
fragments  of  the  old  met  his  eyes. 

Of  all  this  that  was  being  done  to  complicate  his  education,  he  knew 
only  the  color  of  yellow.  He  first  found  himself  sitting  on  a  yellow 
kitchen-floor  in  strong  sunlight.  He  was  three  years  old  when  he  took 
this  earliest  step  in  education  ;  a  lesson  of  color.  The  second  followed  soon  ; 
a  lesson  of  taste.  On  December  3,  1841,  he  developed  scarlet  fever.  For 
several  days  he  was  as  good  as  dead,  reviving  only  under  the  careful  nursing 
of  his  family.  When  he  began  to  recover  strength,  about  January  1,  1842, 
his  hunger  must  have  been  stronger  than  any  other  pleasure  or  pain,  for 
while  in  after  life  he  retained  not  the  faintest  recollection  of  his  illness, 
he  remembered  quite  clearly  his  aunt  entering  the  sickroom  bearing  in 
her  hand  a  saucer  with  a  baked  apple. 

The  order  of  impressions  retained  by  memory  might  naturally  be  that  of 
color  and  taste,  although  one  would  rather  suppose  that  the  sense  of  pain  would 
be  first  to  educate.  In  fact,  the  third  recollection  of  the  child  was  that  of 
discomfort.  The  moment  he  could  be  removed,  he  was  bundled  up  in 
blankets  and  carried  from  the  little  house  in  Hancock  Avenue  to  a  larger  one 
which  his  parents  were  to  occupy  for  the  rest  of  their  lives  in  the  neighbor 
ing  Mount  Vernon  Street.  The  season  was  midwinter,  January  10,  1842, 
and  he  never  forgot  his  acute  distress  for  want  of  air  under  his  blankets,  or 
the  noises  of  moving  furniture. 

As  a  means  of  variation  from  a  normal  type,  sickness  in  childhood 
ought  to  have  a  certain  value  not  to  be  classed  under  any  fitness  or  unfitness 


4  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

of  natural  selection  ;  and  especially  scarlet  fever  affected  boys  seriously,  both 
physically  and  in  character,  though  they  might  through  life  puzzle  them 
selves  to  decide  whether  it  had  fitted  or  unfitted  them  for  success ;  but 
this  fever  of  Henry  Adams  took  greater  and  greater  importance  in  his 
eyes,  from  the  point  of  view  of  education,  the  longer  he  lived.  At  first,  the 
effect  was  physical.  He  fell  behind  his  brothers  two  or  three  inches  in 
height,  and  proportionally  in  bone  and  weight.  His  character  and  processes 
of  mind  seemed  to  share  in  this  fining-down  process  of  scale.  He  was  not 
good  in  a  fight,  and  his  nerves  were  more  delicate  than  boys'  nerves  ought  to 
be.  He  exaggerated  these  weaknesses  as  he  grew  older.  The  habit  of 
doubt ;  of  distrusting  his  own  judgment  and  of  totally  rejecting  the  judgment 
of  the  world ;  the  tendency  to  regard  every  question  as  open ;  the  hesitation 
to  act  except  as  a  choice  of  evils  ;  the  shirking  of  responsibility  ;  the  love  of 
line,  form,  quality  ;  the  horror  of  ennui ;  the  passion  for  companionship  and 
the  antipathy  to  society  ;  all  these  are  well-known  qualities  of  New  England 
character  in  no  way  peculiar  to  individuals ;  but  in  this  instance  they  seemed 
to  be  stimulated  by  the  fever,  and  Henry  Adams  could  never  make  up  his 
mind  whether,  on  the  whole,  the  change  of  character  was  morbid  or  healthy, 
good  or  bad  for  his  purpose.  His  brothers  were  the  type ;  he  was  the 
variation. 

As  far  as  the  boy  knew,  the  sickness  did  not  affect  him  at  all,  and  he 
grew  up  in  excellent  health,  bodily  and  mental,  taking  life  as  it  was  given  ; 
accepting  its  local  standards  without  a  difficulty,  and  enjoying  much  of  it  as 
keenly  as  any  other  boy  of  his  age.  He  seemed  to  himself  quite  normal, 
and  his  companions  seemed  always  to  think  him  so.  Whatever  was  peculiar 
about  him  was  education,  not  character,  and  came  to  him,  directly  and  indi 
rectly,  as  the  result  of  that  eighteenth-century  inheritance  which  he  took 
with  his  name. 

The  atmosphere  of  education  in  which  he  lived  was  colonial,  revolution 
ary,  almost  Cromwellian,  as  though  he  were  steeped,  from  his  greatest 
grandmother's  birth,  in  the  odor  of  political  crime.  Resistance  to  something 
was  the  law  of  New  England  nature ;  the  boy  looked  out  on  the  world  with 
the  instinct  of  resistance ;  for  numberless  generations  his  predecessors  had 
viewed  the  world  chiefly  as  a  thing  to  be  reformed,  filled  with  evil  forces  to 
be  abolished,  and  they  saw  no  reason  to  suppose  that  they  had  wholly 
succeeded  in  the  abolition  ;  the  duty  was  unchanged.  That  duty  implied  not 


QUINCY  5 

only  resistance  to  evil,  but  hatred  of  it.  Boys  naturally  look  on  all  force  as 
an  enemy,  and  generally  find  it  so,  but  the  New  Englander,  whether  boy  or 
man,  in  his  long  struggle  with  a  stingy  or  hostile  universe,  had  learned  also 
to  love  the  pleasure  of  hating ;  his  joys  were  few. 

Politics,  as  a  practice,  whatever  its  professions,  had  always  been  the 
systematic  organization  of  hatreds,  and  Massachusetts  politics  had  been  as 
harsh  as  the  climate.  The  chief  charm  of  New  England  was  harshness  of 
contrasts  and  extremes  of  sensibility,  —  a  cold  that  froze  the  blood,  and  a 
heat  that  boiled  it, — so  that  the. pleasure  of  hating — oneself  if  no  better 
victim  offered, — was  not  its  rarest  amusement;  but  the  charm  was  a  true 
and  natural  child  of  the  soil,  not  a  cultivated  weed  of  the  ancients.  The 
violence  of  the  contrast  was  real  and  made  the  strongest  motive  of  education. 
The  double  exterior  nature  gave  life  its  relative  values.  Winter  and 
summer,  cold  and  heat,  town  and  country,  force  and  freedom,  marked  two 
modes  of  life  and  thought,  balanced  like  lobes  of  the  brain.  Town  was 
winter  confinement,  school,  rule,  discipline ;  straight,  gloomy  streets,  piled 
with  six  feet  of  snow  in  the  middle ;  frosts  that  made  the  snow  sing  under 
wheels  or  runners  ;  thaws  when  the  streets  became  dangerous  to  cross ;  society 
of  uncles,  aunts  and  cousins  who  expected  children  to  behave  themselves,  and 
who  were  not  always  gratified ;  above  all  else,  winter  represented  the  desire 
to  escape  and  go  free.  Town  was  restraint,  law,  unity.  Country,  only  seven 
miles  away,  was  liberty,  diversity,  outlawry,  the  endless  delight  of  mere 
sense  impressions  given  by  nature  for  nothing,  and  breathed  by  boys  without 
knowing  it. 

Boys  are  wild  animals,  rich  in  the  treasures  of  sense,  but  the  New 
England  boy  had  a  wider  range  of  emotions  than  boys  of  more  equable 
climates.  He  felt  his  nature  crudely,  as  it  was  meant.  To  the  boy 
Henry  Adams,  summer  was  drunken.  Among  senses,  smell  was  the 
strongest : — smell  of  hot  pine-woods  and  sweet-fern  in  the  scorching  summer 
noon  ;  of  new-mown  hay ;  of  ploughed  earth  ;  of  box  hedges ;  of  peaches, 
lilacs,  seringas ;  of  stables,  barns,  cow-yards ;  of  salt  water  and  low  tide 
on  the  marshes ;  nothing  came  amiss.  Next  to  smell  came  taste,  and 
the  children  knew  the  taste  of  everything  they  saw  or  touched,  from  penny 
royal  and  flagroot  to  the  shell  of  a  pignut  and  the  letters  of  a  spelling-book : 
— the  taste  of  A-B,  AB,  suddenly  revived  on  the  boy's  tongue  sixty  years 
afterwards.  Light,  line  and  color,  as  sensual  pleasures,  came  later  and  were 


6  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

as  crude  as  the  rest.  The  New  England  light  is  glare,  and  the  atmosphere 
harshens  color.  The  boy  was  a  full  man  before  he  ever  knew  what  was 
meant  by  atmosphere ;  his  idea  of  pleasure  in  light  was  the  blaze  of  a 
New  England  sun.  His  idea  of  color  was  a  peony,  with  the  dew  of  early 
morning  on  its  petals.  The  intense  blue  of  the  sea,  as  he  saw  it  a  mile  or 
two  away,  from  the  Quincy  hills  ;  the  cumuli  in  a  June  afternoon  sky  ;  the 
strong  reds  and  greens  and  purples  of  colored  prints  and  children's  picture- 
books,  as  the  American  colors  then  ran  ;  these  were  ideals.  The  opposites 
or  antipathies,  were  the  cold  grays  of  November  evenings,  and  the  thick, 
muddy  thaws  of  Boston  winter.  With  such  standards,  the  Bostonian 
could  not  but  develop  a  double  nature.  Life  was  a  double  thing.  After  a 
January  blizzard,  the  boy  who  could  look  with  pleasure  into  the  violent 
snow-glare  of  the  cold  white  sunshine,  with  its  intense  light  and  shade, 
scarcely  knew  what  was  meant  by  tone.  He  could  reach  it  only  by  education. 

Winter  and  summer,  then,  were  two  hostile  lives,  and  bred  two  separate 
natures.  Winter  was  always  the  effort  to  live ;  summer  was  tropical 
license.  Whether  the  children  rolled  in  the  grass,  or  waded  in  the  brook, 
or  swam  in  the  salt  ocean,  or  sailed  in  the  bay,  or  fished  for  smelts  in 
the  creeks,  or  netted  minnows  in  the  salt-marshes,  or  took  to  the  pine-woods 
and  the  granite  quarries,  or  chased  musk-rats  and  hunted  snapping-turtles 
in  the  swamps,  or  mushrooms  or  nuts  on  the  autumn  hills,  summer  and 
country  were  always  sensual  living,  while  winter  was  always  compulsory 
learning.  Summer  was  the  multiplicity  of  nature  ;  winter  was  school. 

The  bearing  of  the  two  seasons  on  the  education  of  Henry  Adams  was 
no  fancy  ;  it  was  the  most  decisive  force  he  ever  knew ;  it  ran  through  life, 
and  made  the  division  between  its  perplexing,  warring,  irreconcilable 
problems,  irreducible  opposites,  with  growing  emphasis  to  the  last  year  of 
study.  From  earliest  childhood  the  boy  was  accustomed  to  feel  that,  for 
him,  life  was  double.  Winter  and  summer,  town  and  country,  law  and 
liberty,  were  hostile,  and  the  man  who  pretended  they  were  not,  was  in  his 
eyes  a  schoolmaster : — that  is,  a  man  employed  to  tell  lies  to  little  boys. 
Though  Quincy  was  but  two  hour's  walk  from  Beacon  Hill,  it  belonged  in  a 
different  world.  For  two  hundred  years,  every  Adams,  from  father  to  son, 
had  lived  within  sight  of  State  Street,  and  sometimes  had  lived  in  it,  yet 
none  had  ever  taken  kindly  to  the  town,  or  been  taken  kindly  by  it.  The 
boy  inherited  his  double  nature.  He  knew  as  yet  nothing  about  his  great- 


QUINCY  7 

grandfather,  who  had  died  a  dozen  years  before  his  own  birth :  he  took 
for  granted  that  any  great-grandfather  of  his  must  have  always  been  good, 
and  his  enemies  wicked  ;  but  he  divined  his  great-grandfather's  character 
from  his  own.  Never  for  a  moment  did  he  connect  the  two  ideas  of  Boston 
and  John  Adams  ;  they  were  separate  and  antagonistic ;  the  idea  of  John 
Adams  went  with  Quincy.  He  knew  his  grandfather  John  Quincy  Adams 
only  as  an  old  man  of  seventy-five  or  eighty  who  was  friendly  and  gentle 
with  him,  but  except  that  he  heard  his  grandfather  always  called  "  the 
President,"  and  his  grandmother  "  the  Madam,"  he  had  no  reason  to 
suppose  that  his  Adams  grandfather  differed  in  character  from  his  Brooks 
grandfather  who  was  equally  kind  and  benevolent.  He  liked  the  Adams 
side  best,  but  for  no  other  reason  than  that  it  reminded  him  of  the 
country,  the  summer  and  the  absence  of  restraint.  Yet  he  felt  also  that 
Quincy  was  in  a  way  inferior  to  Boston,  and  that  socially  Boston  looked  down 
on  Quincy.  The  reason  was  clear  enough  even  to  a  five-year-old  child. 
Quincy  had  no  Boston  style.  Little  enough  style  had  either ;  a  simpler 
manner  of  life  and  thought  could  hardly  exist,  short  of  cave-dwelling. 
The  flint-and-steel  with  which  his  grandfather  Adams  used  to  light  his 
own  fires  in  the  early  morning  was  still  on  the  mantel-piece  of  his  study. 
The  idea  of  a  livery  or  even  a  dress  for  servants,  or  of  an  evening  toilette, 
was  next  to  blasphemy.  Bath-rooms,  water-supplies,  lighting,  heating 
and  the  whole  array  of  domestic  comforts,  were  unknown  at  Quincy. 
Boston  had  already  a  bath-room,  a  water-supply,  a  furnace,  and  gas. 
The  superiority  of  Boston  was  evident,  but  a  child  liked  it  no  better 
for  that. 

The  magnificence  of  his  grandfather  Brooks's  house  in  Pearl  Street  or 
South  Street  has  long  ago  disappeared,  but  perhaps  his  country-house 
at  Medford  may  still  remain  to'  show  what  impressed  the  mind  of  a  boy 
in  1845  with  the  idea  of  city  splendor.  The  President's  place  at  Quincy 
was  the  larger  and  older  and  far  the  more  interesting  of  the  two ;  but  a 
boy  felt  at  once  its  inferiority  in  fashion.  It  showed  plainly  enough  its 
want  of  wealth.  It  smacked  of  colonial  age,  but  not  of  Boston  style  or 
plush  curtains.  To  the  end  of  his  life  he  never  quite  overcame  the  pre 
judice  thus  drawn  in  with  his  childish  breath.  He  never  could  compel 
himself  to  care  for  nineteenth  century  style.  He  was  never  able  to  adopt 
it,  any  more  than  his  father  or  grandfather  or  great-grandfather  had 


8  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

done.  Not  that  he  felt  it  as  particularly  hostile,  for  he  reconciled  himself 
to  much  that  was  worse;  but  because,  for  some  remote  reason,  he  was 
born  an  eighteenth  century  child.  The  old  house  at  Quincy  was  eigh 
teenth  century.  What  style  it  had  was  in  its  Queen  Anne  mahogany 
panels  and  its  Louis  XVI  chairs  and  sofas.  The  panels  belonged  to 
an  old  colonial  Vassal  who  built  the  house ;  the  furniture  had  been 
brought  back  from  Paris  in  1789  or  1801  or  1817,  along  with  porcelain 
and  books  and  much  else  of  old  diplomatic  remnants ;  and  neither  of 
the  two  eighteenth-century  styles — neither  English  Queen  Anne  nor 
French  Louis  XVI, — was  comfortable  for  a  boy,  or  for  anyone  else. 
The  dark  mahogany  had  been  painted  white  to  suit  daily  life  in  winter 
gloom.  Nothing  seemed  to  favor,  for  a  child's  objects,  the  older  forms. 
On  the  contrary  most  boys  as  well  as  grown-up  people,  preferred  the  new, 
with  good  reason,  and  the  child  felt  himself  distinctly  at  a  disadvantage 
for  the  taste. 

Nor  had  personal  preference  any  share  in  his  bias.  The  Brooks 
grandfather  was  as  amiable  and  as  sympathetic  as  the  Adams  grand 
father.  Both  were  born  in  1767,  and  both  died  in  1848.  Both  were 
kind  to  children,  and  both  belonged  rather  to  the  eighteenth  than  to  the 
nineteenth  centuries.  The  child  knew  no  difference  between  them  except 
that  one  was  associated  with  winter  and  the  other  with  summer ;  one 
with  Boston,  the  other  with  Quincy.  Even  with  Medford,  the  association 
was  hardly ,  easier.  Once  as  a  very  young  boy  he  was  taken  to  pass  a 
few  days  with  his  grandfather  Brooks  under  charge  of  his  aunt,  but  became 
so  violently  homesick  that  within  twenty-four  hours  he  was  brought  back 
in  disgrace.  Yet  he  could  not  remember  ever  being  seriously  homesick 
again. 

The  attachment  to  Quincy  was  not  altogether  sentimental  or  wholly 
sympathetic.  Quincy  was  not  a  bed  of  thornless  roses.  Even  there  the 
curse  of  Cain  set  its  mark.  There  as  elsewhere  a  cruel  universe  combined  to 
crush  a  child.  As  though  three  or  four  vigorous  brothers  and  sisters, 
with  the  best  will,  were  not  enough  to  crush  any  child,  everyone  else 
conspired  towards  an  education  which  he  hated.  From  cradle  to  grave 
this  problem  of  running  order  through  chaos,  direction  through  space, 
discipline  through  freedom,  unity  through  multiplicity,  has  always  been, 
and  must  always  be,  the  task  of  education,  as  it  is  the  moral  of  religion, 


QUINCY  9 

philosophy,  science,  art,  politics  and  economy ;  but  a  boy's  will  is  his 
life,  and  he  dies  when  it  is  broken,  as  the  colt  dies  in  harness,  taking 
a  new  nature  in  becoming  tame.  Rarely  has  the  boy  felt  kindly 
towards  his  tamers.  Between  him  and  his  master  has  always  been  war. 
Henry  Adams  never  knew  a  boy  of  his  generation  to  like  a  master,  and 
the  task  of  remaining  on  friendly  terms  with  one's  own  family,  in  such 
a  relation,  was  never  easy. 

All  the  more  singular  it  seemed  afterwards  to  him  that  his  first 
serious  contact  with  the  President  should  have  been  a  struggle  of  will, 
in  which  the  old  man  almost  necessarily  defeated  the  boy,  but  instead 
of  leaving,  as  usual  in  such  defeats,  a  lifelong  sting,  left  rather  an  im 
pression  of  as  fair  treatment  as  could  be  expected  from  a  natural  enemy. 
The  boy  met  seldom  with  such  restraint.  He  could  not  have  been 
much  more  than  six  years  old  at  the  time, — seven  at  the  utmost — and 
his  mother  had  taken  him  to  Quincy  for  a  long  stay  with  the  President 
during  the  summer.  What  became  of  the  rest  of  the  family  he  quite 
forgot ;  but  he  distinctly  remembered  standing  at  the  house  door  one 
summer-morning  in  a  passionate  outburst  of  rebellion  against  going  to 
school.  Naturally  his  mother  was  the  immediate  victim  of  his  rage ;  that 
is  what  mothers  are  for,  and  boys  also ;  but  in  this  case  the  boy  had  his 
mother  at  unfair  disadvantage,  for  she  was  a  guest,  and  had  no  means 
of  enforcing  obedience.  Henry  showed  a  certain  tactical  ability  by 
refusing  to  start,  and  he  met  all  efforts  at  compulsion  by  successful, 
though  too  vehement  protest.  He  was  in  fair  way  to  win,  and  was 
holding  his  own,  with  sufficient  energy,  at  the  bottom  of  the  long 
staircase  which  led  up  to  the  door  of  the  President's  library,  when  the 
door  opened,  and  the  old  man  slowly  came  down.  Putting  on  his  hat, 
he  took  the  boy's  hand  without  a  word,  and  walked  with  him  paralysed 
by  awe,  up  the  road  to  the  town.  After  the  first  moments  of  conster 
nation  at  this  interference  in  a  domestic  dispute,  the  boy  reflected  that 
an  old  gentleman  close  on  eighty  would  never  trouble  himself  to  walk 
near  a  mile  on  a  hot  summer  morning  over  a  shadeless  road  to  take  a 
boy  to  school,  and  that  it  would  be  strange  if  a  lad  imbued  with  the 
passion  of  freedom  could  not  find  a  corner  to  dodge  around,  somewhere 
before  reaching  the  school-door.  Then  and  always,  the  boy  insisted 
that  this  reasoning  justified  his  apparent  submission ;  but  the  old  man 


10  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

did  not  stop,  and  the  boy  saw  all  his  strategical  points  turned,  one  after 
another,  until  he  found  himself  seated  inside  the  school,  and  obviously 
the  centre  of  curious  if  not  malevolent  criticism.  Not  till  then  did  the 
President  release  his  hand  and  depart. 

The  point  was  that  this  act,  contrary  to  the  inalienable  rights  of  boys, 
and  nullifying  the  social  compact,  ought  to  have  made  him  dislike  his 
grandfather  for  life.  He  could  not  recall  that  it  had  this  effect  even  for  a 
moment.  With  a  certain  maturity  of  mind,  the  child  must  have  recognized 
that  the  President,  though  a  tool  of  tyranny,  had  done  his  disreputable 
work  with  a  certain  intelligence.  He  had  shown  no  temper,  no  irritation, 
no  personal  feeling,  and  had  made  no  display  of  force.  Above  all,  he  had 
held  his  tongue.  During  their  long  walk  he  had  said  nothing ;  he  had 
uttered  no  syllable  of  revolting  cant  about  the  duty  of  obedience  and  the 
wickedness  of  resistance  to  law ;  he  had  shown  no  concern  in  the  matter ; 
hardly  even  a  consciousness  of  the  boy's  existence.  Probably  his  mind  at 
that  moment  was  actually  troubling  itself  little  about  his  grandson's 
iniquities,  and  much  about  the  iniquities  of  President  Polk,  but  the 
boy  could  scarcely  at  that  age  feel  the  whole  satisfaction  of  thinking  that 
President  Polk  was  to  be  the  vicarious  victim  of  his  own  sins,  and  he  gave 
his  grandfather  credit  for  intelligent  silence.  For  this  forbearance  he  felt  in 
stinctive  respect.  He  admitted  force  as  a  form  of  right ;  he  admitted  even 
temper,  under  protest ;  but  the  seeds  of  a  moral  education  would  at  that 
moment  have  fallen  on  the  stoniest  soil  in  Quincy,  which  is,  as  everyone 
knows,  the  stoniest  glacial  and  tidal  drift  known  in  any  Puritan  land. 

Neither  party  to  this  momentary  disagreement  can  have  felt  rancor,  for 
during  these  three  or  four  summers  the  old  President's  relations  with  the 
boy  were  friendly  and  almost  intimate.  Whether  his  older  brothers  and 
sister  were  still  more  favored  he  failed  to  remember,  but  he  was  himself 
admitted  to  a  sort  of  familiarity  which,  when  in  his  turn  he  had  reached  old 
age,  rather  shocked  him,  for  it  must  have  sometimes  tried  the  President's 
patience.  He  hung  about  the  library ;  handled  the  books ;  deranged  the 
papers ;  ransacked  the  drawers ;  searched  the  old  purses  and  pocket-books  for 
foreign  coins ;  drew  the  sword-cane ;  snapped  the  travelling-pistols ;  upset 
everything  in  the  corners,  and  penetrated  the  President's  dressing-closet 
where  a  row  of  tumblers,  inverted  on  the  shelf,  covered  caterpillars  which 
were  supposed  to  become  moths  or  butterflies  but  never  did.  The  Madam 


QUINCY  11 

bore  with  fortitude  the  loss  of  the  tumblers  which  her  husband  purloined  for 
these  hatcheries  ;  but  she  made  protest  when  he  carried  off  her  best  cut-glass 
bowls  to  plant  with  acorns  or  peachstones  that  he  might  see  the  roots  grow, 
but  which  she  said,  he  commonly  forgot  like  the  caterpillars. 

At  that  time  the  President  rode  the  hobby  of  tree-culture,  and 
some  fine  old  trees  should  still  remain  to  witness  it,  unless  they  have 
been  improved  off  the  ground ;  but  his  was  a  restless  mind,  and  although 
he  took  his  hobbies  seriously  and  would  have  been  annoyed  had  his 
grandchild  asked  whether  he  was  bored  like  an  English  Duke,  he  prob 
ably  cared  more  for  the  processes  than  for  the  results,  so  that  his  grandson 
was  saddened  by  the  sight  and  smell  of  peaches  and  pears,  the  best  of  their 
kind,  which  he  brought  up  from  the  garden  to  rot  on  his  shelves  for  seed. 
With  the  inherited  virtues  of  his  Puritan  ancestors,  the  little  boy  Henry 
conscientiously  brought  up  to  him  in  his  study  the  finest  peaches  he 
found  in  the  garden,  and  eat  only  the  less  perfect.  Naturally  he  eat  more 
by  way  of  compensation,  but  the  act  showed  that  he  bore  no  grudge.  As 
for  his  grandfather,  it  is  even  possible  that  he  may  have  felt  a  certain 
self-reproach  for  his  temporary  role  of  schoolmaster, — seeing  that  his 
own  career  did  not  offer  proof  of  the  worldly  advantages  of  docile 
obedience, — for  there  still  exists  somewhere  a  little  volume  of  critically 
edited  Nursery  Rhymes  with  the  boy's  name  in  full  written  in  the 
President's  trembling  hand  on  the  fly  leaf.  Of  course  there  was  also  the 
Bible,  given  to  each  child  at  birth,  with  the  proper  inscription  in  the 
President's  hand  on  the  fly  leaf;  while  their  grandfather  Brooks  supplied 
the  silver  mugs. 

So  many  Bibles  and  silver  mugs  had  to  be  supplied,  that  a  new 
house,  or  cottage,  was  built  to  hold  them.  It  was  "on  the  hill,"  five 
minutes  walk  above  "  the  old  house,"  with  a  far  view  eastward  over 
Quincy  Bay,  and  northward  over  Boston.  Till  his  twelfth  year,  the 
child  passed  his  summers  there,  and  his  pleasures  of  childhood  mostly 
centred  in  it.  Of  education  he  had  as  yet  little  to  complain.  Country 
schools  were  not  very  serious.  Nothing  stuck  to  the  mind  except  home  im 
pressions,  and  the  sharpest  were  those  of  kindred  children ;  but  as 
influences  that  warped  a  mind,  none  compared  with  the  mere  effect  of 
the  back  of  the  President's  bald  head,  as  he  sat  in  his  pew  on  Sundays, 
in  line  with  that  of  President  Quincy,  who,  though  some  ten  years 


12  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

younger,  seemed  to  children  about  the  same  age.  Before  railways 
entered  the  New  England  town,  every  parish  church  showed  half-a-dozen 
of  these  leading  citizens,  with  gray  hair,  who  sat  on  the  main  aisle  in 
the  best  pews,  and  had  sat  there,  or  in  some  equivalent  dignity,  since 
the  time  of  St.  Augustin,  if  not  since  the  glacial  epoch.  It  was 
unusual  for  boys  to  sit  behind  a  President  grandfather,  and  to  read 
over  his  head  the  tablet  in  memory  of  a  President  great-grandfather, 
who  had  "  pledged  his  life,  his  fortune,  and  his  sacred  honor "  to  secure 
the  independence  of  his  country  and  so  forth;  but  boys  naturally 
supposed,  without  much  reasoning,  that  other  boys  had  the  equivalent 
of  President  grandfathers,  and  that  churches  would  always  go  on,  with 
the  baldheaded  leading  citizens  on  the  main  aisle,  and  Presidents  or 
their  equivalents  on  the  walls.  The  Irish  gardener  once  said  to  the 
child : — "You'll  be  thinkin'  you'll  be  President  too !  "  The  casuality 
of  the  remark  made  so  strong  an  impression  on  his  mind  that  he  never 
forgot  it.  He  could  not  remember  ever  to  have  thought  on  the 
subject;  to  him,  that  there  should  be  a  doubt  of  his  being  President 
was  a  new  idea.  What  had  been  would  continue  to  be.  He  doubted 
neither  about  Presidents  nor  about  Churches,  and  no  one  suggested  at 
that  time  a  doubt  whether  a  system  of  society  which  had  lasted  since 
Adam  would  outlast  one  Adams  more. 

The  Madam  was  a  little  more  remote  than  the  President,  but  more 
decorative.  She  stayed  much  in  her  own  room  with  the  Dutch  tiles, 
looking  out  on  her  garden  with  the  box  walks,  and  seemed  a  fragile  creature 
to  a  boy  who  sometimes  brought  her  a  note  or  a  message,  and  took  distinct 
pleasure  in  looking  at  her  delicate  face  under  what  seemed  to  him  very 
becoming  caps.  He  liked  her  refined  figure  ;  her  gentle  voice  and  manner ; 
her  vague  effect  of  not  belonging  there,  but  to  Washington  or  to  Europe, 
like  her  furniture,  and  writing-desk  with  little  glass  doors  above  and  little 
eighteenth-century  volumes  in  old  binding,  labelled  Peregrine  Pickle  or 
Tom  Jones  or  Hannah  More.  Try  as  she  might,  the  Madam  could  never  be 
Bostonian,  and  it  was  her  cross  in  life,  but  to  the  boy  it  was  her  charm. 
Even  at  that  age,  he  felt  drawn  to  it.  The  Madam's  life  had  been  in  truth 
far  from  Boston.  She  was  born  in  London  in  1775,  daughter  of  Joshua 
Johnson,  an  American  merchant,  brother  of  Governor  Thomas  Johnson  of 
Maryland  ;  and  Catherine  Nuth,  of  an  English  family  in  London.  Driven 


QUINCY  13 


from  England  by  the  revolutionary  war,  Joshua  Johnson  took  his  family 
to  Nantes,  where  they  remained  till  the  peace.  The  girl  Louisa  Catherine 
was  nearly  ten  years  old  when  brought  back  to  London,  and  her  sense 
of  nationality  must  have  been  confused ;  but  the  influence  of  the 
Johnsons  and  the  services  of  Joshua  obtained  for  him  from  President 
Washington  the  appointment  of  Consul  in  London  on  the  organization  of 
the  government  in  1790.  In  1794  President  Washington  appointed  John 
Quincy  Adams  minister  to  the  Hague.  He  was  twenty-seven  years  old 
when  he  returned  to  London,  and  found  the  Consul's  house  a  very  agreeable 
haunt.  Louisa  was  then  twenty. 

At  that  time,  and  long  afterwards,  the  Consul's  house,  far  more  than 
the  Minister's,  was  the  centre  of  contact  for  travelling  Americans,  either 
official  or  other.  The  Legation  was  a  shifting  point,  between  1785  and 
181 5 ;  but  the  Consulate,  far  down  in  the  City,  near  the  Tower,  was  con 
venient  and  inviting ;  so  inviting  that  it  proved  fatal  to  young  Adams. 
Louisa  was  charming,  like  a  Romuey  portrait,  but  among  her  many  charms 
that  of  being  a  New  England  woman  was  not  one.  The  defect  was  serious. 
Her  future  mother-in-law,'  Abigail,  a  famous  New  England  woman  whose 
authority  over  her  turbulent  husband,  the  second  President,  was  hardly  so 
great  as  that  which  she  exercised  over  her  son,  the  sixth  to  be,  was  troubled 
by  the  fear  that  Louisa  might  not  be  made  of  stuff  stern  enough,  or  brought 
up  in  conditions  severe  enough,  to  suit  a  New  England  climate,  or  to  make 
an  efficient  wife  for  her  paragon  son,  and  Abigail  was  right  on  that  point,  as 
on  most  others  where  sound  judgment  was  involved ;  but  sound  judgment 
is  sometimes  a  source  of  weakness  rather  than  of  force,  and  John  Quincy 
already  had  reason  to  think  that  his  mother  held  sound  judgments  on  the 
subject  of  daughters-in-law  which  human  natui-e,  since  the  fall  of  Eve,  made 
Adams  helpless  to  realise.  Being  three  thousand  miles  away  from  his 
mother,  and  equally  far  in  love,  he  married  Louisa  in  London,  July  26, 
1797,  and  took  her  to  Berlin  to  be  the  head  of  the  United  States  Legation. 
During  three  or  four  exciting  years,  the  young  bride  lived  in  Berlin ; 
whether  she  was  happy  or  not,  whether  she  was  content  or  not,  whether  she 
was  socially  successful  or  not,  her  descendants  did  not  surely  know ;  but  in 
any  case  she  could  by  no  chance  have  become  educated  there  for  a  life  in 
Quincy  or  Boston.  In  1801  the  overthrow  of  the  federalist  party  drove  her 
and  her  husband  to  America,  and  she  became  at  last  a  member  of  the 


14  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

Quincy  household,  but  by  that  time  her  children  needed  all  her  attention, 
and  she  remained  there  with  occasional  winters  in  Boston  and  Washington, 
till  1809.  Her  husband  was  made  Senator  in  1803,  and  in  1809  was 
appointed  Minister  to  Russia.  She  went  with  him  to  St.  Petersburg,  taking 
her  baby,  Charles  Francis,  born  in  1807 ;  but  broken-hearted  at  having  to 
leave  her  two  older  boys  behind.  The  life  at  St.  Petersburg  was  hardly  gay 
for  her ;  they  were  far  too  poor  to  shine  in  that  extravagant  society  ;  but  she 
survived  it,  though  her  little  girl  baby  did  not,  and  in  the  winter  of  1814-15, 
alone  with  the  boy  of  seven  years  old,  crossed  Europe  from  St.  Petersburg  to 
Paris,  in  her  travelling-carriage,  passing  through  the  armies,  and  reaching 
Paris  in  the  Cent  Jours  after  Napoleon's  return  from  Elba.  Her  husband 
next  went  to  England  as  Minister,  and  she  was  for  two  years  at  the  Court  of 
the  Regent.  In  1817  her  husband  came  home  to  be  Secretary  of  State,  and 
she  lived  for  eight  years  in  F  Street,  doing  her  work  of  entertainer  for 
President  Monroe's  administration.  Next  she  lived  four  miserable  years  in 
the  White  House.  When  that  chapter  was  closed  in  1829,  she  had  earned 
the  right  to  be  tired  and  delicate,  but  she  still  had  fifteen  years  to  serve  as 
wife  of  a  Member  of  the  House,  after  her  husband  went  back  to  Congress  in 
1833.  Then  it  was  that  the  little  Henry,  her  grandson,  first  remembered 
her,  from  1843  to  1848,  sitting  in  her  panelled  room,  at  breakfast,  with  her 
heavy  silver  tea-pot  and  sugar-bowl  and  cream-jug,  which  came  afterwards 
to  him  and  still  exist  somewhere  as  an  heirloom  of  the  modern  safety-vault. 
By  that  time  she  was  seventy  years  old  or  more,  and  thoroughly  weary  of 
being  beaten  about  a  stormy  world.  To  the  boy  she  seemed  singularly 
peaceful,  a  vision  of  silver  gray,  presiding  over  her  old  President  and  her 
Queen  Anne  mahogany ;  an  exotic,  like  her  Sevres  china ;  an  object  of 
deference  to  everyone,  and  of  great  affection  to  her  son  Charles ;  but  hardly 
more  Bostonian  than  she  had  been  fifty  years  before,  on  her  wedding-day, 
in  the  shadow  of  the  Tower  of  London. 

Such  a  figure  was  even  less  fitted  than,  that  of  her  old  husband,  the 
President,  to  impress  on  a  boy's  mind  the  standards  of  the  coming 
century.  She  was  Louis  Seize,  like  the  furniture.  The  boy  knew 
nothing  of  her  interior  life,  which  had  been,  as  the  venerable  Abigail, 
long  since  at  peace,  foresaw,  one  of  severe  stress  and  little  pure  satisfac 
tion.  He  never  dreamed  that  from  her  might  come  some  of  those 
doubts  and  self-questionings,  those  hesitations,  those  rebellions  against  law 


QUINCY  15 

and  discipline,  which  marked  more  than  one  of  her  descendants ;  but  he 
might  even  then  have  felt  some  vague  instinctive  suspicion  that  he  was 
to  inherit  from  her  the  seeds  of  the  primal  sin,  the  fall  from  grace,  the 
curse  of  Abel,  that  he  was  not  of  pure  New  England  stock,  but  half 
exotic.  As  a  child  of  Quincy  he  was  not  a  true  Bostonian,  but  even 
as  a  child  of  Quincy  he  inherited  a  quarter  taint  of  Maryland  blood. 
Charles  Francis,  half  Marylander  by  birth,  had  hardly  seen  Boston  till 
he  was  ten  years  old,  when  his  parents  left  him  there  at  school  in  1817, 
and  he  never  forgot  the  experience.  He  was  to  be  nearly  as  old  as  his 
mother  had  been  in  1845,  before  he  quite  accepted  Boston,  or  Boston 
quite  accepted  him. 

A  boy  who  began  his  education  in  these  surroundings,  with  physical 
strength  inferior  to  that  of  his  brothers,  and  with  a  certain  delicacy 
of  mind  and  bone,  ought  rightly  to  have  felt  at  home  in  the  eighteenth 
century  and  should,  in  proper  self-respect,  have  rebelled  against  the 
standards  of  the  nineteenth.  The  atmosphere  of  his  first  ten  years 
must  have  been  very  like  that  of  his  grandfather  at  the  same  age,  from 
1767  till  1776,  barring  the  battle  of  Bunker  Hill,  and  even  as  late  as 
1846,  the  battle  of  Bunker  Hill  remained  actual.  The  tone  of  Boston 
society  was  colonial.  The  true  Bostonian  always  knelt  in  self-abasement 
before  the  majesty  of  English  standards ;  far  from  concealing  it  as  a 
weakness,  he  was  proud  of  it  as  his  strength.  The  eighteenth  century 
ruled  society  long  after  1850.  Perhaps  the  boy  began  to  shake  it  off 
rather  earlier  than  most  of  his  mates. 

Indeed  this  prehistoric  stage  of  education  ended  rather  abruptly 
with  his  tenth  year.  One  winter  morning  he  was  conscious  of  a  certain 
confusion  in  the  house  in  Mount  Vernon  Street,  and  gathered  from 
such  words  as  he  could  catch,  that  the  President,  who  happened  to  be 
then  staying  there,  on  his  way  to  Washington,  had  fallen  and  hurt 
himself.  Then  he  heard  the  word  paralysis.  After  that  day  he  came 
to  associate  the  word  with  the  figure  of  his  grandfather,  in  a  tallbacked, 
invalid  armchair,  on  one  side  of  the  spare  bedroom  fireplace,  and  one 
of  his  old  friends,  Dr.  Parkman  or  P.  P.  F.  Degrand,  on  the  other 
side,  both  dozing. 

The  end  of  this  first,  or  ancestral  and  revolutionary,  chapter,  came 
on  February  21,  1848, — and  the  month  of  February  brought  life  and 


16  THE  EDUCATION  OF   HENRY   ADAMS 

death  as  a  family  habit, — when  the  eighteenth  century,  as  an  actual 
and  living  companion,  vanished.  If  the  scene  on  the  floor  of  the 
House,  when  the  old  President  fell,  struck  the  still  simple-minded 
American  public  with  a  sensation  unusually  dramatic,  its  effect  on  a 
ten-year-old  boy,  whose  boy-life  was  fading  away  with  the  life  of  his 
grandfather,  could  not  be  slight.  One  had  to  pay  for  revolutionary 
patriots ;  grandfathers  and  grandmothers  ;  Presidents  ;  diplomates ;  Queen 
Anne  mahogany  and  Louis  Seize  chairs,  as  well  as  for  Stuart  portraits. 
Such  things  warp  young  life.  Americans  commonly  believed  that  they 
ruined  it,  and  perhaps  the  practical  common-sense  of  the  American 
mind  judged  right.  Many  a  boy  might  be  ruined  by  much  less  than  the 
emotions  of  the  funeral  service  in  the  Quincy  church,  with  its  surround 
ings  of  national  respect  and  family  pride.  By  another  dramatic  chance 
it  happened  that  the  clergyman  of  the  parish,  Dr.  Lunt,  was  an  unusual 
pulpit  orator,  the  ideal  of  a  somewhat  austere  intellectual  type,  such  as 
the  school  of  Buckminster  and  Channing  inherited  from  the  old  Con 
gregational  clergy.  His  extraordinarily  refined  appearance,  his  dignity 
of  manner,  his  deeply  cadenced  voice,  his  remarkable  English  and  his 
fine  appreciation,  gave  to  the  funeral  service  a  character  that  left  an 
overwhelming  impression  on  the  boy's  mind.  He  was  to  see  many  great 
functions,  —  funerals  and  festivals, — in  after  life,  till  his  only  thought 
was  to  see  no  more,  but  he  never  again  witnessed  any  thing  nearly  so 
impressive  to  him  as  the  last  services  at  Quincy  over  the  body  of  one 
President  and  the  ashes  of  another. 

The  effect  of  the  Quincy  service  was  deepened  by  the  official  ceremony 
which  afterwards  took  place  in  Faneuil  Hall,  when  the  boy  was  taken  to 
hear  his  uncle,  Edward  Everett,  deliver  a  Eulogy.  Like  all  Mr.  Everett's 
orations,  it  was  an  admirable  piece  of  oratory,  such  as  only  an  admirable 
orator  and  scholar  could  create ;  too  good  for  a  ten-year-old  boy  to  appreciate 
at  its  value  ;  but  already  the  boy  knew  that  the  dead  President  could  not  be 
in  it,  and  had  even  learned  why  he  would  have  been  out  of  place  there ;  for 
knowledge  was  beginning  to  come  fast.  The  shadow  of  the  War  of  1812 
still  hung  over  State  Street ;  the  shadow  of  the  Civil  war  to  come  had 
already  begun  to  darken  Faneuil  Hall.  No  rhetoric  could  have  reconciled 
Mr.  Everett's  audience  to  his  subject.  How  could  he  say  there,  to  an 
assemblage  of  Bostonians  in  the  heart  of  mercantile  Boston,  that  the  only 


QUINCY  17 

distinctive  mark  of  all  the  Adamses,  since  old  Sam  Adams's  father  a  hundred 
and  fifty  years  before,  had  been  their  inherited  quarrel  with  State  Street, 
which  had  again  and  again  broken  out  into  riot,  bloodshed,  personal  feuds, 
foreign  and  civil  war,  wholesale  banishments  and  confiscations,  until  the 
history  of  Florence  was  hardly  more  turbulent  than  that  of  Boston  ?  How 
could  he  whisper  the  word  Hartford  Convention  before  the  men  who  had 
made  it?  What  would  have  been  said  had  he  suggested  the  chance  of 
Secession  and  Civil  War? 

Thus  already  at  ten  years  old,  the  boy  found  himself  standing  face  to 
face  with  a  dilemma  that  might  have  puzzled  an  early  Christian.  What 
was  he? — where  was  he  going?  Even  then  he  felt  that  something  was 
wrong,  but  he  concluded  that  it  must  be  Boston.  Quincy  had  always  been 
right,  for  Quincy  represented  a  moral  principle, — the  principle  of  resistance 
to  Boston.  His  Adams  ancestors  must  have  been  right,  since  they  were 
always  hostile  to  State  Street.  If  State  Street  was  wrong,  Quincy  must  be 
right !  Turn  the  dilemma  as  he  pleased,  he  still  came  back  on  the  eighteenth 
century  and  the  law  of  Resistance ;  of  Truth ;  of  Duty,  and  of  Freedom. 
He  was  a  ten-year-old  priest  and  politician.  He  could  under  no  circum 
stances  have  guessed  what  the  next  fifty  years  had  in  store,  and  no  one  could 
teach  him;  but  sometimes,  in  his  old  age,  he  wondered — and  could  never 
decide — whether  the  most  clear  and  certain  knowledge  would  have  helped 
him.  Supposing  he  had  seen  a  New  York  stock-list  of  1900,  and  had 
studied  the  statistics  of  railways,  telegraphs,  coal  and  steel,  —  would  he  have 
quitted  his  eighteenth-century,  his  ancestral  prejudices,  his  abstract  ideals, 
his  semiclerical  training,  and  the  rest,  in  order  to  perform  an  expiatory 
pilgrimage  to  State  Street,  and  ask  for  the  fatted  calf  of  his  grandfather 
Brooks  and  a  clerkship  in  the  Suffolk  Bank  ? 

Sixty  years  afterwards  he  was  (still  unable  to  make  up  his  mind. 
Each  course  had  its  advantages,  but  the  material  advantages,  looking  back, 
seemed  to  lie  wholly  in  State  Street. 


CHAPTER    II 

1848-1854 

Peter  Chardon  Brooks,  the  other  grandfather,  died  January  1,  1849, 
bequeathing  what  was  supposed  to  be  the  largest  estate  in  Boston,  about  two 
million  dollars,  to  his  seven  surviving  children:  four  sons,  —  Edward,  Peter 
Chardon,  Gorham  and  Sydney ;  three  daughters :  Charlotte,  married  to 
Edward  Everett ;  Ann,  married  to  Nathaniel  Frothingham,  minister  of  the 
First  Church ;  and  Abigail  Brown,  born  April  25,  1808,  married  Sept.  3, 
1829,  to  Charles  Francis  Adams,  hardly  a  year  older  than  herself.  Their 
first  child,  born  in  1830,  was  a  daughter,  named  Louisa  Catherine,  after  her 
Johnson  grandmother  ;  the  second  was  a  son,  named  John  Quincy,  after  his 
President  grandfather ;  the  third  took  his  father's  name,  Charles  Francis ; 
while  the  fourth,  being  of  less  account,  was  in  a  way  given  to  his  mother 
who  named  him  Henry  Brooks,  after  a  favorite  brother  just  lost.  More 
followed,  but  these,  being  younger,  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  arduous 
process  of  educating. 

The  Adams  connection  was  singularly  small  in  Boston,  but  the  family 
of  Brooks  was  singularly  large  and  even  brilliant,  and  almost  wholly  of 
clerical  New  England  stock.  One  might  have  sought  long  in  much  larger 
and  older  societies  for  three  brothers-in-law  more  distinguished  or  more 
scholarly  than  Edward  Everett,  Dr.  Frothingham  and  Mr.  Adams.  One 
might  have  sought  equally  long  for  seven  brothers-in-law  more  unlike.  No 
doubt  they  all  bore  more  or  less  the  stamp  of  Boston,  or  at  least  of  Massa 
chusetts  Bay,  but  the  shades  of  difference  amounted  to  contrasts.  Mr. 
Everett  belonged  to  Boston  hardly  more  than  Mr.  Adams.  One  of  the  most 
ambitious  of  Bostonians,  he  had  broken  bounds  early  in  life  by  leaving  the 
Unitarian  pulpit  to  take  a  seat  in  Congress  where  he  had  given  valuable 
18 


BOSTON  19 

support  to  J.  Q.  Adams's  administration  ;  support  which,  as  a  social  conse 
quence,  led  to  the  marriage  of  the  President's  son,  Charles  Francis,  with 
Mr.  Everett's  youngest  sister-in-law,  Abigail  Brooks.  The  wreck  of  parties 
which  marked  the  reign  of  Andrew  Jackson  had  interfered  with  many 
promising  careers,  that  of  Edward  Everett  among  the  rest,  but  he  had  risen 
with  the  Whig  party  to  power,  had  gone  as  minister  to  England,  and  had 
returned  to  America  with  the  halo  of  a  European  reputation,  and  undisputed 
rank  second  only  to  Daniel  Webster  as  the  orator  and  representative  figure 
of  Boston.  The  other  brother-in-law,  Dr.  Frothingham,  belonged  to  the 
same  clerical  school,  though  in  manner  rather  the  less  clerical  of  the  two. 
Neither  of  them  had  much  in  common  with  Mr.  Adams  who  was  a  younger 
man,  greatly  biased  by  his  father,  and  by  the  inherited  feud  between  Quincy 
and  State  Street ;  but  personal  relations  were  friendly  as  far  as  a  boy  could 
see,  and  the  innumerable  cousins  went  regularly  to  the  First  Church  every 
Sunday  in  winter,  and  slept  through  their  uncle's  sermons  without  once 
thinking  to  ask  what  the  sermons  were  supposed  to  mean  for  them.  For 
two  hundred  years  the  First  Church  had  seen  the  same  little  boys,  sleeping 
more  or  less  soundly  under  the  same  or  similar  conditions,  and  dimly 
conscious  of  the  same  feuds ;  but  the  feuds  had  never  ceased,  and  the  boys 
had  always  grown  up  to  inherit  them.  Those  of  the  generation  of  1812  had 
mostly  disappeared  in  1850 ;  death  had  cleared  that  score ;  the  quarrels  of 
John  Adams,  and  those  of  John  Quincy  Adams  were  no  longer  acutely 
personal ;  the  game  was  considered  as  drawn ;  and  Charles  Francis  Adams 
might  then  have  taken  his  inherited  rights  of  political  leadership  in 
succession  to  Mr.  Webster  and  Mr.  Everett,  his  seniors.  Between  him  and 
State  Street  the  relation  was  more  natural  than  between  Edward  Everett 
and  State  Street ;  but  instead  of  doing  so,  Charles  Francis  Adams  drew 
himself  aloof  and  renewed  the  old  war  which  had  already  lasted  since  1700. 
He  could  not  help  it.  With  the  record  of  J.  Q.  Adams  fresh  in  the 
popular  memory,  his  son  and  his  only  representative  could  not  make  terms 
with  the  slave-power,  and  the  slave-power  overshadowed  all  the  great  Boston 
interests.  No  doubt  Mr.  Adams  had  principles  of  his  own,  as  well  as 
inherited,  but  even  his  children,  who  as  yet  had  no  principles,  could  equally 
little  follow  the  lead  of  Mr.  Webster  or  even  of  Mr.  Seward.  They  would 
have  lost  in  consideration  more  than  they  would  have  gained  in  patronage. 
They  were  anti-slavery  by  birth,  as  their  name  was  Adams  and  their  home 


20  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

was  Quincy.  No  matter  how  much  they  had  wished  to  enter  State  Street, 
they  felt  that  State  Street  never  would  trust  them,  or  they  it.  Had  State 
Street  been  Paradise,  they  must  hunger  for  it  in  vain,  and  it  hardly  needed 
Daniel  Wehster  to  act  as  archangel  with  the  flaming  sword,  to  order  them 
away  from  the  door. 

Time  and  experience,  which  alter  all  perspectives,  altered  this  among 
the  rest,  and  taught  the  boy  gentler  judgment,  but  even  when  only  ten  years 
old,  his  face  was  already  fixed,  and  his  heart  was  stone,  against  State  Street ; 
his  education  was  warped  beyond  recovery  in  the  direction  of  puritan 
politics.  Between  him  and  his  patriot  grandfather  at  the  same  age,  the 
conditions  had  changed  little.  The  year  1848  was  like  enough  the  year 
1776  to  make  a  fair  parallel.  The  parallel,  as  concerned  bias  of  education, 
was  complete  when,  a  few  months  after  the  death  of  John  Quincy  Adams,  a 
Convention  of  anti-slavery  delegates  met  at  Buffalo  to  organise  a  new  party, 
and  named  candidates  for  the  general  election  in  November : —  for  Presi 
dent,  Martin  Van  Buren ;  for  Vice-President,  Charles  Francis  Adams. 

For  any  American  boy,  the  fact  that  his  father  was  running  for  office 
would  have  dwarfed  for  the  time  every  other  excitement,  but  even  apart 
from  personal  bias,  the  year  1848,  for  a  boy's  road  through  life,  was  decisive 
for  twenty  years  to  come.  There  was  never  a  side-path  of  escape.  The 
stamp  of  1848  was  almost  as  indelible  as  the  stamp  of  1776,  but  in  the 
eighteenth,  or  any  earlier  century,  the  stamp  mattered  less  because  it  was 
standard,  and  everyone  bore  it ;  while  men  whose  lives  were  to  fall  in  the 
generation  between  1865  and  1900  had,  first  of  all,  to  get  rid  of  it,  and  take 
the  stamp  that  belonged  to  their  time.  This  was  their  education.  To 
outsiders,  immigrants,  adventurers,  it  was  easy,  but  the  old  puritan  nature 
rebelled  against  change.  The  reason  it  gave  was  forcible.  The  puritan 
thought  his  thought  higher  and  his  moral  standards  better  than  those  of  his 
successors.  So  they  were.  He  could  not  be  convinced  that  moral  standards 
had  nothing  to  do  with  it,  and  that  utilitarian  morality  was  good  enough  for 
him,  as  it  was  for  the  graceless.  Nature  had  given  to  the  boy  Henry  a 
character  that,  in  any  previous  century,  would  have  led  him  into  the 
Church :  he  inherited  dogma  and  a  priori  thought  from  the  beginning  of  time ; 
and  he  scarcely  needed  a  violent  reaction  like  anti-slavery  politics  to  sweep 
him  back  into  puritanism  with  a  violence  as  great  as  that  of  a  religious  war. 

Thus  far  he  had  nothing  to  do  with  it ;   his  education  was  chiefly 


BOSTON  21 

inheritance,  and  during  the  next  five  or  six  years,  his  father  alone  counted 
for  much.  If  he  were  to  worry  successfully  through  life's  quicksands,  he 
must  depend  chiefly  on  his  father's  pilotage  ;  but,  for  his  father,  the  channel 
lay  clear,  while  for  himself  an  unknown  ocean  lay  beyond.  His  father's 
business  in  life  was  to  get  past  the  dangers  of  the  slave-power,  or  to  fix  its 
bounds  at  least.  The  task  done,  he  might  be  content  to  let  his  sons  pay  for 
the  pilotage ;  and  it  mattered  little  to  his  success  whether  they  paid  it  with 
their  lives  wasted  on  battle-fields  or  in  misdirected  energies  and  lost  op 
portunity.  The  generation  that  lived  from  1840  to  1870  could  do  very  well 
with  the  old  forms  of  education  ;  that  which  had  its  work  to  do  between 
1870  and  1900  needed  something  quite  new. 

His  father's  character  was  therefore  the  larger  part  of  his  education,  as 
far  as  any  single  person  affected  it,  and  for  that  reason,  if  for  no  other,  the 
son  was  always  a  much  interested  critic  of  his  father's  mind  and  temper. 
Long  after  his  death  as  an  old  man  of  eighty,  his  sons  continued  to  discuss 
this  subject  with  a  good  deal  of  difference  in  their  points  of  view.  To  his 
son  Henry,  the  quality  that  distinguished  his  father  from  all  the  other 
figures  in  the  family  group,  was  that,  in  his  opinion,  Charles  Francis  Adams 
possessed  the  only  perfectly  balanced  mind  that  ever  existed  in  the  name. 
For  a  hundred  years,  every  newspaper  scribbler  had,  with  more  or  less 
obvious  excuse,  derided  or  abused  the  older  Adamses  for  want  of  judgment. 
They  abused  Charles  Francis  for  his  judgment.  Naturally  they  never 
attempted  to  assign  values  to  either ;  that  was  the  children's  affair ;  but  the 
traits  were  real.  Charles  Francis  Adams  was  singular  for  mental  poise, — 
absence  of  self-assertion  or  self-consciousness, — the  faculty  of  standing  apart 
without  seeming  aware  that  he  was  alone,  —  a  balance  of  mind  and  temper 
that  neither  challenged  nor  avoided  notice,  nor  admitted  question  of  super 
iority  or  inferiority,  of  jealousy,  of  personal  motives,  from  any  source,  even 
under  great  pressure.  This  unusual  poise  of  judgment  and  temper,  ripened 
by  age,  became  the  more  striking  to  his  son  Henry  as  he  learned  to  measure 
the  mental  faculties  themselves,  which  were  in  no  way  exceptional  either  for 
depth  or  range.  Charles  Francis  Adams's  memory  was  hardly  above  the 
average ;  his  mind  was  not  bold  like  his  grandfather's  or  restless  like  his 
father's,  or  imaginative  or  oratorical, —  still  less  mathematical;  but  it  worked 
with  singular  perfection,  admirable  self-restraint,  and  instinctive  mastery  of 
form.  Within  its  range  it  was  a  model. 


22  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

The  standards  of  Boston  were  high,  much  affected  by  the  old  clerical 
self-respect  which  gave  the  Unitarian  clergy  unusual  social  charm.  Dr. 
Channing,  Mr.  Everett,  Dr.  Frothingham,  Dr.  Palfrey,  President  Walker, 
R.  W.  Emerson,  and  other  Boston  ministers  of  the  same  school,  would  have 
commanded  distinction  in  any  society  ;  but  the  Adamses  had  little  or  no 
affinity  with  the  pulpit,  and  still  less  with  its  eccentric  off-shoots,  like 
Theodore  Parker,  or  Brook  Farm,  or  the  philosophy  of  Concord.  Besides 
its  clergy,  Boston  showed  a  literary  group,  led  by  Ticknor,  Prescott,  Long 
fellow,  Motley,  O.  W.  Holmes ;  but  Mr.  Adams  was  not  one  of  them  ;  as  a 
rule  they  were  much  too  Websterian.  Even  in  science  Boston  could  claim 
a  certain  eminence,  especially  in  medicine,  but  Mr.  Adams  cared  very  little 
for  science.  He  stood  alone.  He  had  no  master — hardly  even  his  father. 
He  had  no  scholars — hardly  even  his  sons. 

Almost  -alone  among  his  Boston  contemporaries,  he  was  not  English  in 
feeling  or  in  sympathies.  Perhaps  a  hundred  years  of  acute  hostility  to 
England  had  something  to  do  with  this  family  trait ;  but  in  his  case  it  went 
further  and  became  indifference  to  social  distinction.  Never  once  in  forty 
years  of  intimacy  did  his  son  notice  in  him  a  trace  of  snobbishness.  He  was 
one  of  the  exceedingly  small  number  of  Americans  to  whom  an  English 
Duke  or  Duchess  seemed  to  be  indifferent,  and  royalty  itself  nothing  more 
than  a  slightly  inconvenient  presence.  This  was,  it  is  true,  rather  the  tone 
of  English  society  in  his  time,  but  Americans  were  largely  responsible  for 
changing  it,  and  Mr.  Adams  had  every  possible  reason  for  affecting  the 
manner  of  a  courtier  even  if  he  did  not  feel  the  sentiment.  Never  did  his 
son  see  him  flatter  or  vilify,  or  show  a  sign  of  envy  or  jealousy ;  never  a 
shade  of  vanity  or  self-conceit.  Never  a  tone  of  arrogance  !  Never  a  gesture 
of  pride ! 

The  same  thing  might  perhaps  have  been  said  of  John  Quincy  Adams, 
but  in  him  his  associates  averred  that  it  was  accompanied  by  mental  rest 
lessness  and  often  by  lamentable  want  of  judgment.  No  one  ever  charged 
Charles  Francis  Adams  with  this  fault.  The  critics  charged  him  with  just 
the  opposite  defect.  They  called  him  cold.  No  doubt,  such  perfect  poise, — 
such  intuitive  self-adjustment, — was  not  maintained  by  nature  without  a 
sacrifice  of  the  qualities  which  would  have  upset  it.  No  doubt,  too,  that 
even  his  restless-minded,  introspective,  self-conscious  children  who  knew 
him  best,  were  much  too  ignorant  of  the  world  and  of  human  nature  to 


BOSTON  23 

suspect  how  rare  and  complete  was  the  model  before  their  eyes.  A  coarser 
instrument  would  have  impressed  them  more.  Average  human  nature  is 
very  coarse,  and  its  ideals  must  necessarily  be  average.  The  world  never 
loved  perfect  poise.  What  the  world  does  love  is  commonly  absence  of  poise, 
for  it  has  to  be  amused.  Napoleons  and  Andrew  Jacksons  amuse  it,  but  it 
is  not  amused  by  perfect  balance.  Had  Mr.  Adams's  nature  been  cold,  he 
would  have  followed  Mr.  Webster,  Mr.  Everett,  Mr.  Seward  and  Mr.  Win- 
throp  in  the  lines  of  party  discipline  and  self-interest.  Had  it  been  less 
balanced  than  it  was,  he  would  have  gone  with  Mr.  Garrison,  Mr.  Wendell 
Phillips,  Mr.  Edmund  Quincy  and  Theodore  Parker,  into  secession.  Between 
the  two  paths  he  found  an  intermediate  one,  distinctive  and  characteristic ; — 
he  set  up  a  party  of  his  own. 

This  political  party  became  a  chief  influence  in  the  education  of  the  boy 
Henry  in  the  six  years  1848-1854,  and  violently  affected  his  character  at  the 
moment  when  character  is  plastic.  The  group  of  men  with  whom  Mr. 
Adams  associated  himself,  and  whose  social  centre  was  the  house  in  Mount 
Vernon  Street,  numbered  only  three:  —  Dr.  John  G.  Palfrey;  Richard  H. 
Dana,  and  Charles  Sumner.  Dr.  Palfrey  was  the  oldest,  and  in  spite  of  his 
clerical  education,  was  to  a  boy  often  the  most  agreeable,  for  his  talk  was 
lighter  and  his  range  wider  than  that  of  the  others ;  he  had  wit,  or  humor, 
and  the  give-and-take  of  dinner-table  exchange.  Born  to  be  a  man  of  the 
world,  he  forced  himself  to  be  clergyman,  professor  or  statesman,  while,  like 
every  other  true  Bostonian,  he  yearned  for  the  ease  of  the  Athenaeum  Club 
in  Pall  Mall  or  the  Combination  Room  at  Trinity.  Dana  at  first  suggested 
the  opposite ;  he  affected  to  be  still  before  the  mast,  a  direct,  rather  bluff, 
vigorous  seaman,  and  only  as  one  got  to  know  him  better  one  found  the  man 
of  rather  excessive  refinement  trying  with  success  to  work  like  a  day-laborer, 
deliberately  hardening  his  skin  to  the  burden,  as  though  he  were  still  carrying 
hides  at  Monterey.  Undoubtedly  he  succeeded,  for  his  mind  and  will  were 
robust,  but  he  might  have  said  what  his  lifelong  friend  William  M.  Evarts 
used  to  say  :  —  "I  pride  myself  on  my  success  in  doing  not  the  things  I  like 
to  do,  but  the  things  I  don't  like  to  do."  Dana's  ideal  of  life  was  to  be  a 
great  Englishman,  with  a  seat  on  the  front  benches  of  the  House  of 
Commons  until  he  should  be  promoted  to  the  wool-sack  ;  beyond  all,  with  a 
social  status  that  should  place  him  above  the  scuffle  of  provincial  and 
unprofessional  annoyances ;  but  he  forced  himself  to  take  life  as  it  came,  and 


24  THE   EDUCATION  OF   HENRY  ADAMS 

he  suffocated  his  longings  with  grim  self-discipline,  by  mere  force  of  will. 
Of  the  four  men,  Dana  was  the  most  marked.  Without  dogmatism  or  self- 
assertion,  he  seemed  always  to  be  fully  in  sight,  a  figure  that  completely 
filled  a  well-defined  space.  He,  too,  talked  well,  and  his  mind  worked  close 
to  its  subject,  as  a  lawyer's  should  ;  but  disguise  and  silence  it  as  he  liked,  it 
was  aristocratic  to  the  tenth  generation. 

In  that  respect,  and  in  that  only,  Charles  Sumner  was  like  him,  but 
Sumner,  in  almost  every  other  quality,  was  quite  different  from  his  three 
associates, — altogether  out  of  line.  He  too  adored  English  standards,  but 
his  ambition  led  him  to  rival  the  career  of  Edmund  Burke.  No  young 
Bostonian  of  his  time  had  made  so  brilliant  a  start,  but  rather  in  the  steps  of 
Edward  Everett  than  of  Daniel  Webster.  As  an  orator  he  had  achieved  a 
triumph  by  his  oration  against  war ;  but  Boston  admired  him  chiefly  for  his 
social  success  in  England  and  on  the  continent ;  success  that  gave  to  every 
Bostonian  who  enjoyed  it  a  halo  never  acquired  by  domestic  sanctity.  Mr. 
Sumner,  both  by  interest  and  instinct  felt  the  value  of  his  English  connec 
tion,  and  cultivated  it  the  more  as  he  became  socially  an  outcast  from  Boston 
society  by  the  passions  of  politics.  He  was  rarely  without  a  pocket-full  of 
letters  from  Duchesses  or  noblemen  in  England.  Having  sacrificed  to 
principle  his  social  position  in  America,  he  clung  the  more  closely  to  his 
foreign  attachments.  The  Free  Soil  party  fared  ill  in  Beacon  Street.  The 
social  arbiters  of  Boston  —  George  Ticknor  and  the  rest, — had  to  admit, 
however  unwillingly,  that  the  Free  Soil  leaders  could  not  mingle  with  the 
friends  and  followers  of  Mr.  Webster.  Sumner  was  socially  ostracised,  and 
so,  for  that  matter,  were  Palfrey,  Dana,  Russell,  Adams  and  all  the  other 
avowed  anti-slavery  leaders,  but  for  them  it  mattered  less  because  they  had 
houses  and  families  of  their  own ;  while  Sumner  had  neither  wife  nor 
household,  and,  though  the  most  socially  ambitious  of  all,  and  the  most 
hungry  for  what  used  to  be  called  polite  society,  he  could  enter  hardly  half 
a  dozen  houses  in  Boston.  Longfellow  stood  by  him  in  Cambridge,  and 
even  in  Beacon  Street  he  could  always  take  refuge  in  the  house  of  Mr. 
Lodge,  but  few  days  passed  when  he  did  not  pass  some  time  in  Mount 
Vernon  Street.  Even  with  that,  his  solitude  was  glacial,  and  reacted  on  his 
character.  He  had  nothing  but  himself  to  think  about.  His  superiority 
was,  indeed,  real  and  incontestable ;  he  was  the  classical  ornament  of  the 
anti-slavery  party  ;  their  pride  in  him  was  unbounded,  and  their  admiration 
outspoken. 


BOSTON  25 

The  boy  Henry  worshipped  him,  and  if  he  ever  regarded  any  older 
man  as  a  personal  friend,  it  was  Mr.  Sumner.  The  relation  of  Mr.  Sumner 
in  the  household  was  far  closer  than  any  relation  of  blood.  None  of  the 
uncles  approached  such  intimacy.  Sumner  was  the  boy's  ideal  of  greatness ; 
the  highest  product  of  nature  and  art.  The  only  fault  of  such  a  model  was 
its  superiority  which  defied  imitation.  To  the  twelve-year-old  boy,  his 
father,  Dr.  Palfrey,  Mr.  Dana,  were  men,  more  or  less  like  what  he  himself 
might  become ;  but  Mr.  Sumner  was  a  different  order, — heroic. 

As  the  boy  grew  up  to  be  ten  or  twelve  years  old,  his  father  gave  him  a 
writing-table  in  one  of  the  alcoves  of  his  Boston  library,  and  there,  winter 
after  winter,  Henry  worked  over  his  Latin  Grammar  and  listened  to  these 
four  gentlemen  discussing  the  course  of  anti-slavery  politics.  The  dis 
cussions  were  always  serious  ;  the  Free  Soil  party  took  itself  quite  seriously  ; 
and  they  were  habitual  because  Mr.  Adams  had  undertaken  to  edit  a 
newspaper  as  the  organ  of  these  gentlemen,  who  came  to  discuss  its  policy 
and  expression.  At  the  same  time,  Mr.  Adams  was  editing  the  Works  of 
his  grandfather  John  Adams,  and  made  the  boy  read  texts  for  proof- 
correction.  In  after  years  his  father  sometimes  complained  that,  as  a  reader 
of  Novanglus  and  Massachusettensis,  Henry  had  shown  very  little  conscious 
ness  of  punctuation ;  but  the  boy  regarded  this  part  of  school  life  only  as  a 
warning,  if  he  ever  grew  up  to  write  dull  discussions  in  the  newspapers,  to 
try  to  be  dull  in  some  different  way  from  that  of  his  great-grandfather. 
Yet  the  discussions  in  the  Boston  Whig  were  carried  on  in  much  the  same 
style  as  those  of  John  Adams  and  his  opponent,  and  appealed  to  much  the 
same  society  and  the  same  habit  of  mind.  The  boy  got  as  little  education, 
fitting  him  for  his  own  time,  from  the  one  as  from  the  other,  and  he  got 
no  more  from  his  contact  with  the  gentlemen  themselves  who  were  all 
types  of  the  past. 

Down  to  1850,  and  even  later,  New  England  society  was  still  directed 
by  the  professions.  Lawyers,  physicians,  professors,  merchants  were  classes, 
and  acted  not  as  individuals  but  as  though  they  were  clergymen  and  each 
profession  were  a  church.  In  politics  the  system  required  competent 
expression ;  it  was  the  old  Ciceronian  idea  of  government  by  the  best  that 
produced  the  long  line  of  New  England  statesmen.  They  chose  men  to 
represent  them  because  they  wanted  to  be  well  represented,  and  they  chose 
the  best  they  had.  Thus  Boston  chose  Daniel  Webster,  and  Webster  took, 


26  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

not  as  pay  but  as  honorarium,  the  cheques  raised  for  him  by  Peter  Harvey 
from  the  Appletons,  Perkinses,  Amorys,  Searses,  Brookses,  Lawrences  and  so 
on,  who  begged  him  to  represent  them.  Edward  Everett  held  the  rank  in 
regular  succession  to  Webster.  Robert  C.  Winthrop  claimed  succession  to 
Everett.  Charles  Sumner  aspired  to  break  the  succession  but  not  the 
system.  The  Adamses  had  never  been,  for  any  great  length  of  time,  a  part 
of  this  State  succession ;  they  had  preferred  the  national  service,  and  had 
won  all  their  distinction  outside  the  State,  but  they  too  had  required  State 
support  and  had  commonly  received  it.  The  little  group  of  men  in  Mount 
Vernon  Street  were  an  off-shoot  of  this  system ;  they  were  statesmen,  not 
politicians ;  they  guided  public  opinion  but  were  little  guided  by  it. 

The  boy  naturally  learned  only  one  lesson  from  his  saturation  in  such 
air.  He  took  for  granted  that  this  sort  of  world,  more  or  less  the  same  that 
had  always  existed  in  Boston  and  Massachusetts  Bay,  was  the  world  which 
he  was  to  fit.  Had  he  known  Europe  he  would  have  learned  no  better. 
The  Paris  of  Louis  Philippe,  Guizot  and  de  Tocqueville,  as  well  as  the 
London  of  Robert  Peel,  Macaulay  and  John  Stuart  Mill,  were  but  varieties 
of  the  same  upper-class  bourgeoisie  that  felt  instinctive  cousinship  with  the 
Boston  of  Ticknor,  Prescott  and  Motley.  Even  the  typical  grumbler 
Carlyle,  who  cast  doubts  on  the  real  capacity  of  the  middle-class,  and  who  at 
times  thought  himself  eccentric,  found  friendship  and  alliances  in  Boston, — 
still  more  in  Concord.  The  system  had  proved  so  successful  that  even 
Germany  wanted  to  try  it,  and  Italy  yearned  for  it,  England's  middle- 
class  government  was  the  ideal  of  human  progress. 

Even  the  violent  reaction  after  1848,  and  the  return  of  all  Europe 
to  military  practices,  never  for  a  moment  shook  the  true  faith.  No  one, 
except  Karl  Marx,  foresaw  radical  change.  What  announced  it?  The 
world  was  producing  sixty  or  seventy  million  tons  of  coal,  and  might  be 
using  nearly  a  million  steam-horse-power,  just  beginning  to  make  itself  felt- 
All  experience  since  the  creation  of  man,  all  divine  revelation  or  human 
science,  conspired  to  deceive  and  betray  a  twelve-year-old  boy  who  took  for 
granted  that  his  ideas,  which  were  alone  respectable,  would  be  alone  respected. 

Viewed  from  Mt.  Vernon  Street,  the  problem  of  life  was  as  simple  as 
it  was  classic.  Politics  offered  no  difficulties,  for  there  the  moral  law  was 
a  sure  guide.  Social  perfection  was  also  sure,  because  human  nature  worked 
for  Good,  and  three  instruments  were  all  she  asked : — Suffrage,  Common 


BOSTON  27 

Schools  and  Press.  On  these  points  doubt  was  forbidden.  Education 
was  divine,  and  man  needed  only  a  correct  knowledge  of  facts  to  reach 
perfection : — 

' '  Were  half  the  power  that  fills  the  world  with  terror, 

Were  half  the  wealth  bestowed  on  camps  and  courts, 
Given  to  redeem  the  human  mind  from  error, 
There  were  no  need  of  arsenals  nor  forts. ' ' 

Nothing  quieted  doubt  so  completely  as  the  mental  calm  of  the  Unitarian 
clergy.  In  uniform  excellence  of  life  and  character,  moral  and  intellectual, 
the  score  of  Unitarian  clergymen  about  Boston,  who  controlled  society  and 
Harvard  College,  were  never  excelled.  They  proclaimed  as  their  merit  that 
they  insisted  on  no  doctrine,  but  taught,  or  tried  to  teach,  the  means  of 
leading  a  virtuous,  useful,  unselfish  life,  which  they  held  to  be  sufficient  for 
salvation.  For  them,  difficulties  might  be  ignored ;  doubts  were  waste  of 
thought ;  nothing  exacted  solution.  Boston  had  solved  the  universe ;  or 
had  offered  and  realised  the  best  solution  yet  tried.  The  problem  was 
worked  out. 

Of  all  the  conditions  of  his  youth  which  afterwards  puzzled  the  grown 
up  man,  this  disappearance  of  religion  puzzled  him  most.  The  boy  went  to 
church  twice  every  Sunday  ;  he  was  taught  to  read  his  Bible,  and  he  learned 
religious  poetry  by  heart ;  he  believed  in  a  mild  Deism  ;  he  prayed  ;  he  went 
through  all  the  forms ;  but  neither  to  him  nor  to  his  brothers  or  sisters  was 
religion  real.  Even  the  mild  discipline  of  the  Unitarian  church  was  so 
irksome  that  they  all  threw  it  off  at  the  first  possible  moment,  and  never 
afterwards  entered  a  church.  The  religious  instinct  had  vanished,  and 
could  not  be  revived,  although  one  made  in  later  life  many  efforts  to 
recover  it.  That  the  most  powerful  emotion  of  man,  next  to  the  sexual, 
should  disappear,  might  be  a  personal  defect  of  his  own  ;  but  that  the  most 
intelligent  society,  led  by  the  most  intelligent  clergy,  in  the  most  moral  con 
ditions  he  ever  knew,  should  have  solved  all  the  problems  of  the  universe  so 
thoroughly  as  to  have  quite  ceased  making  itself  anxious  about  past  or  future, 
and  should  have  persuaded  itself  that  all  the  problems  which  had  convulsed 
human  thought  from  earliest  recorded  time,  were  not  worth  discussing, 
seemed  to  him  the  most  curious  social  phenomenon  he  had  to  account  for  in 
a  long  life.  The  faculty  of  turning  away  one's  eyes  as  one  approaches  a 


28  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

chasm  is  not  unusual,  and  Boston  showed,  under  the  lead  of  Mr.  Webster, 
how  successfully  it  could  be  done  in  politics ;  but  in  politics  a  certain  number 
of  men  did  at  least  protest.  In  religion  and  philosophy  no  one  protested. 
Such  protest  as  was  made  took  forms  more  simple  than  the  silence,  like  the 
deism  of  Theodore  Parker,  and  of  the  boy's  own  cousin  Octavius  Frothing- 
ham,  who  distressed  his  father  and  scandalised  Beacon  Street  by  avowing 
scepticism  that  seemed  to  solve  no  old  problems,  and  to  raise  many  new 
ones.  The  less  aggressive  protest  of  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  was,  from  an 
old-world  point  of  view,  less  serious.  It  was  naif. 

The  children  reached  manhood  without  knowing  religion,  and  with  the 
certainty  that  dogma,  metaphysics  and  abstract  philosophy  were  not  worth 
knowing.  So  one-sided  an  education  could  have  been  possible  in  no  other 
country  or  time,  but  it  became,  almost  of  necessity,  the  more  literary  and 
political.  As  the  children  grew  up,  they  exaggerated  the  literary  and 
the  political  interests.  They  joined  in  the  dinner-table  discussions  and  from 
childhood  the  boys  were  accustomed  to  hear,  almost  every  day,  table  talk 
as  good  as  they  were  ever  likely  to  hear  again.  The  eldest  child, 
Louisa,  was  one  of  the  most  sparkling  creatures  her  brother  met  in  a  long 
and  varied  experience  of  bright  women.  The  oldest  son,  John,  was 
afterwards  regarded  as  one  of  the  best  talkers  in  Boston  society,  and  perhaps 
the  most  popular  man  in  the  State,  though  apt  to  be  on  the  unpopular  side. 
Palfrey  and  Dana  could  be  entertaining  when  they  pleased,  and  though 
Charles  Sumner  could  hardly  be  called  light  in  hand,  he  was  willing  to  be 
amused,  and  smiled  grandly  from  time  to  time ;  while  Mr.  Adams,  who 
talked  relatively  little,  was  always  a  good  listener,  and  laughed  over  a 
witticism  till  he  choked. 

By  way  of  educating  and  amusing  the  children,  Mr.  Adams  read  much 
aloud,  and  was  sure  to  read  political  literature,  especially  when  it  was 
satirical,  like  the  speeches  of  Horace  Mann  and  the  Epistles  of  Hosea 
Biglow,  with  great  delight  to  the  youth.  So  he  read  Longfellow  and 
Tennyson  as  their  poems  appeared,  but  the  children  took  possession  of 
Dickens  and  Thackeray  for  themselves.  Both  were  too  modern  for  tastes 
founded  on  Pope  and  Dr.  Johnson.  The  boy  Henry  soon  became  a 
desultory  reader  of  every  book  he  found  readable,  but  these  were  commonly 
eighteenth- century  historians  because  his  father's  library  was  full  of  them. 
In  the  want  of  positive  instincts,  he  drifted  into  the  mental  indolence  of 


BOSTON  29 

history.  Sd,  too,  he  read  shelves  of  eighteenth-century  poetry,  but  when 
his  father  offered  his  own  set  of  Wordsworth  as  a  gift  on  condition  of 
reading  it  through,  he  declined.  Pope  and  Gray  called  for  no  mental 
effort ;  they  were  easy  reading ;  but  the  boy  was  thirty  years  old  before  his 
education  reached  Wordsworth. 

This  is  the  story  of  an  education,  and  the  person  or  persons  who  figure  in 
it  are  supposed  to  have  values  only  as  educators  or  educated.  The  surround 
ings  concern  it  only  so  far  as  they  affect  education.  Sumner,  Dana,  Palfrey, 
had  values  of  their  own,  like  Hume,  Pope  and  Wordsworth,  which  anyone 
may  study  in  their  works ;  here  all  appear  only  as  influences  on  the  mind 
of  a  boy  very  nearly  the  average  of  most  boys  in  physical  and  mental 
stature.  The  influence  was  wholly  political  and  literary.  His  father  made 
no  effort  to  force  his  mind,  but  left  him  free  play,  and  this  was  perhaps 
best.  Only  in  one  way,  his  father  rendered  him  a  great  service  by  trying 
to  teach  him  French  and  giving  him  some  idea  of  a  French  accent. 
Otherwise  the  family  was  rather  an  atmosphere  than  an  influence.  The 
boy  had  a  large  and  overpowering  set  of  brothers  and  sisters,  who  were 
modes  or  replicas  of  the  same  type,  getting  the  same  education,  struggling 
with  the  same  problems,  and  solving  the  question,  or  leaving  it  unsolved, 
much  in  the  same  way.  They  knew  no  more  than  he  what  they  wanted, 
or  what  to  do  for  it,  but  all  were  conscious  that  they  would  like  to  control 
power  in  some  form ;  and  the  same  thing  could  be  said  of  an  ant  or  an 
elephant.  Their  form  was  tied  to  politics  or  literature.  They  amounted 
to  one  individual  with  half-a-dozen  sides  or  facets ;  their  temperaments 
reacted  on  each  other  and  made  each  child  more  like  the  other.  This  was 
also  education,  but  in  the  type,  and  the  Boston  or  New  England  type  was 
well  enough  known.  What  no  one  knew  was  whether  the  individual  who 
thought  himself  a  representative  of  this  type,  was  fit  to  deal  with  life. 

As  far  as  outward  bearing  went,  such  a  family  of  turbulent  children, 
given  free  rein  by  their  parents,  or  indifferent  to  check,  should  have  come 
to  more  or  less  grief.  Certainly  no  one  was  strong  enough  to  control  them, 
least  of  all  their  mother,  the  queen-bee  of  the  hive,  on  whom  nine-tenths 
of  the  burden  fell,  on  whose  strength  they  all  depended,  but  whose  children 
were  much  too  self-willed  and  self-confident  to  take  guidance  from  her,  or 
from  anyone  else,  unless  in  the  direction  they  fancied.  Father  and  mother 
were  about  equally  helpless.  Almost  every  large  family  in  those  days 


30  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

produced  at  least  one  black  sheep,  and  if  this  generation  of  Adamses  escaped, 
it  was  as  much  a  matter  of  surprise  to  them  as  to  their  neighbors.  By  some 
happy  chance  they  grew  up  to  be  decent  citizens,  but  Henry  Adams,  as 
a  brand  escaped  from  the  burning,  always  looked  back  with  astonishment 
at  their  luck.  The  fact  seemed  to  prove  that  they  were  born,  like  birds, 
with  a  certain  innate  balance.  Home  influences  alone  never  saved  the  New 
England  boy  from  ruin,  though  sometimes  they  may  have  helped  to  ruin 
him ;  and  the  influences  outside  of  home  were  negative.  If  school 
helped,  it  was  only  by  reaction.  The  dislike  of  school  was  so  strong  as  to 
be  a  positive  gain.  The  passionate  hatred  of  school  methods  was  almost  a 
method  in  itself.  Yet  the  day-school  of  that  time  was  respectable,  and 
the  boy  had  nothing  to  complain  of.  In  fact,  he  never  complained.  He 
hated  it  because  he  was  herded  with  a  crowd  of  other  boys  and  com 
pelled  to  learn  by  memory  a  quantity  of  things  that  did  not  amuse  him. 
His  memory  was  slow,  and  the  effort  painful.  For  him  to  conceive  that 
his  memory  could  compete  for  school-prizes  with  machines  of  two  or  three 
times  its  power,  was  to  prove  himself  wanting  not  only  in  memory, 
but  flagrantly  in  mind.  He  thought  his  mind  a  good  enough  machine, 
if  it  were  given  time  to  act,  but  it  acted  wrong  if  hurried.  Schoolmasters 
never  gave  time. 

In  any  and  all  its  forms,  the  boy  detested  school,  and  the  prejudice 
became  deeper  with  years.  He  always  reckoned  his  school-days,  from 
ten  to  sixteen  years  old,  as  time  thrown  away.  Perhaps  his  .needs  turned 
out  to  be  exceptional,  but  his  existence  was  exceptional.  Between  1850 
and  1900  nearly  everyone's  existence  was  exceptional.  For  success  in 
the  life  imposed  on  him  he  needed,  as  afterwards  appeared,  the  facile  use 
of  only  four  tools: — Mathematics;  French;  German,  and  Spanish.  With 
these,  he  could  master  in  very  short  time  any  special  branch  of  inquiry, 
and  feel  at  home  in  any  society.  Latin  and  Greek,  he  could,  with  the 
help  of  the  modern  languages,  learn  more  completely  by  the  intelligent 
work  of  six  weeks  than  in  the  six  years  he  spent  on  them  at  school. 
These  four  tools  were  necessary  to  his  success  in  life,  but  he  never  con 
trolled  any  one  of  them. 

Thus,  at  the  outset,  he  was  condemned  to  failure  more  or  less  complete 
in  the  life  awaiting  him,  but  not  more  so  than  his  companions.  In 
deed,  had  his  father  kept  the  boy  at  home,  and  given  him  half  an 
hour's  direction  every  day,  he  would  have  done  more  for  him  than  school 


BOSTON  31 

ever  could  do  for  them.  Of  course,  school-taught  men  and  boys  looked 
down  on  home-bred  boys,  and  rather  prided  themselves  on  their  own  ignor 
ance,  but  the  man  of  sixty  can  generally  see  what  he  needed  in  life,  and  in 
Henry  Adams's  opinion  it  was  not  school. 

Most  school  experience  was  bad.  Boy  associations  at  fifteen  were 
worse  than  none.  Boston  at  that  time  offered  few  healthy  resources  for 
boys  or  men.  The  bar-room  and  billiard-room  were  more  familiar  than 
parents  knew.  As  a  rule  boys  could  skate  and  swim  and  were  sent 
to  dancing-school ;  they  played  a  rudimentary  game  of  base-ball,  foot-ball 
and  hockey ;  a  few  could  sail  a  boat ;  still  fewer  had  been  out  with 
a  gun  to  shoot  yellow-legs  or  a  stray  wild  duck ;  one  or  two  may  have 
learned  something  of  natural  history  if  they  came  from  the  neighborhood 
of  Concord ;  none  could  ride  across  country,  or  knew  what  shooting  with 
dogs  meant.  There  was  not  a  trout-stream  on  the  coast,  and  no  fly-fishing. 
Sport  as  a  pursuit  was  unknown.  Boat-racing  came  after  1850.  For 
horse-racing,  only  the  trotting-course  existed.  Of  all  pleasures,  winter- 
sleighing  was  still  the  gayest  and  most  popular.  From  none  of  these 
amusements  could  the  boy  learn  anything  likely  to  be  of  use  to  him  in  the 
world.  Books  remained  as  in  the  eighteenth  century,  the  source  of 
life,  and  as  they  came  out,  —  Thackeray,  Dickens,  Bulwer,  Tennyson, 
Macaulay,  Carlyle  and  the  rest,  —  they  were  devoured ;  but  as  far  as 
happiness  went,  the  happiest  hours  of  the  boy's  education  were  passed  in 
summer  lying  on  a  musty  heap  of  Congressional  Documents  in  the  old 
farm-house  at  Quincy,  reading  Quentin  Durward,  Ivanhoe  and  the  Talis 
man,  and  raiding  the  garden  at  intervals  for  peaches  and  pears.  On 
the  whole  he  learned  most  then. 


CHAPTER    III 

1850^1854 

Except  for  politics,  Mt.  Vernon  Street  had  the  merit  of  leaving  the 
boy-mind  supple,  free  to  turn  with  the  world,  and  if  one  learned  next  to 
nothing,  the  little  one  did  learn  needed  not  to  be  unlearned.  The  surface 
was  ready  to  take  any  form  that  education  should  cut  into  it,  though 
Boston,  with  singular  foresight,  rejected  the  old  designs.  What  sort  of  educa 
tion  was  stamped  elsewhere,  a  Bostonian  had  no  idea,  but  he  escaped  the  evils 
of  other  standards  by  having  no  standard  at  all ;  and  what  was  true  of  school 
was  true  of  society.  Boston  offered  none  that  could  help  outside.  Everyone 
now  smiles  at  the  bad  taste  of  Queen  Victoria  and  Louis  Philippe, 
— the  society  of  the  forties, — but  the  taste  was  only  reflection  of  the 
social  slack-water  between  a  tide  passed,  and  a  tide  to  come.  Boston 
belonged  to  neither,  and  hardly  even  to  America.  Neither  aristocratic 
nor  industrial  nor  social,  Boston  girls  and  boys  were  not  nearly  as  unformed 
as  English  boys  and  girls,  but  had  less  means  of  acquiring  form  as  they 
grew  older.  Women  counted  for  little  as  models.  Every  boy,  from  the  age 
of  seven,  fell  in  love  at  frequent  intervals  with  some  girl, — always 
more  or  less  the  same  little  girl, — who  had  nothing  to  teach  him,  or  he 
to  teach  her,  except  rather  familiar  and  provincial  manners,  until  they 
married  and  bore  children  to  repeat  the  habit.  The  idea  of  attaching 
oneself  to  a  married  woman,  or  of  polishing  one's  manners  to  suit  the 
standards  of  women  of  thirty,  could  hardly  have  entered  the  mind  of  a 
young  Bostonian,  and  would  have  scandalised  his  parents.  From  women 
the  boy  got  the  domestic  virtues  and  nothing  else.  He  might  not  even 
catch  the  idea  that  women  had  more  to  give.  The  garden  of  Eden  was 
hardly  more  primitive. 
32 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS  33 

To  balance  this  virtue,  the  puritan  city  had  always  hidden  a  darker 
side.  Blackguard  Boston  was  only  too  educational,  and  to  most  boys  much 
the  more  interesting.  A  successful  blackguard  must  enjoy  great  physical 
advantages  besides  a  true  vocation,  and  Henry  Adams  had  neither ;  but 
no  boy  escaped  some  contact  with  vice  of  a  very  low  form.  Blackguardism 
came  constantly  under  boys'  eyes,  and  had  the  charm  of  force  and  freedom 
and  superiority  to  culture  or  decency.  One  might  fear  it,  but  no  one 
honestly  despised  it.  Now  and  then  it  asserted  itself  as  education  more 
roughly  than  school  ever  did.  One  of  the  commonest  boy-games  of  winter, 
inherited  directly  from  the  eighteenth-century,  was  a  game  of  war  on 
Boston  Common.  In  old  days  the  two  hostile  forces  were  called  North 
Enders  and  South  Enders.  In  1850  the  North  Enders  still  survived  as 
a  legend,  but  in  practice  it  was  a  battle  of  the  Latin  School  against  all 
comers,  and  the  Latin  School,  for  snow-ball,  included  all  the  boys  of  the 
west  end.  Whenever,  on  a  half-holiday  the  weather  was  soft  enough  to 
soften  the  snow,  the  Common  was  apt  to  be  the  scene  of  a  fight,  which 
began  in  daylight  with  the  Latin  School  in  force,  rushing  their  opponents 
down  to  Tremont  Street,  and  which  generally  ended  at  dark  by  the  Latin 
School  dwindling  in  numbers  and  disappearing.  As  the  Latin  School 
grew  weak,  the  roughs  and  young  blackguards  grew  strong.  As  long  as 
snow-balls  were  the  only  weapon,  no  one  was  much  hurt,  but  a  stone  may 
be  put  in  a  snow-ball,  and  in  the  dark  a  stick  or  a  slung-shot  in  the  hands 
of  a  boy  is  as  effective  as  a  knife.  One  afternoon  the  fight  had  been  long 
and  exhausting.  The  boy  Henry,  following,  as  his  habit  was,  his  bigger 
brother  Charles,  had  taken  part  in  the  battle,  and  had  felt  his  courage 
much  depressed  by  seeing  one  of  his  trustiest  leaders,  Henry  Higginson, 
— "Bully  Hig,"  his  school  name, — struck  by  a  stone  over  the  eye,  and  led 
off  the  field  bleeding  in  rather  a  ghastly  manner.  As  night  came  on,  the 
Latin  School  w&s  steadily  forced  back  to  the  Beacon  Street  Mall  where 
they  could  retreat  no  further  without  disbanding,  and  by  that  time  only 
a  small  band  was  left,  headed  by  two  heroes,  Savage  and  Marvin.  A 
dark  mass  of  figures  could  be  seen  below,  making  ready  for  the  last  rush, 
and  rumor  said  that  a  swarm  of  blackguards  from  the  slums,  led  by  a 
grisly  terror  called  Conky  Daniels,  with  a  club  and  a  hideous  reputation, 
were  going  to  put  an  end  to  the  Beacon  Street  cowards  forever.  Henry 
wanted  to  run  away  with  the  others,  but  his  brother  was  too  big  to  run  away 
3 


34  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

so  they  stood  still  and  waited  immolation.  The  dark  mass  set  up  a  shout, 
and  rushed  forward.  The  Beacon  Street  boys  turned  and  fled  up  the 
steps,  except  Savage  and  Marvin  and  the  few  champions  who  would  not 
run.  The  terrible  Conky  Daniels  swaggered  up,  stopped  a  moment  with 
his  body-guard  to  swear  a  few  oaths  at  Marvin,  and  then  swept  on  and 
chased  the  flyers,  leaving  the  few  boys  untouched  who  stood  their  ground. 
The  obvious  moral  taught  that  blackguards  were  not  so  black  as  they 
were  painted ;  but  the  boy  Henry  had  passed  through  as  much  terror  as 
though  he  were  Turenne  or  Henri  IV,  and  ten  or  twelve  years  afterwards 
when  these  same  boys  were  fighting  and  falling  on  all  the  battle-fields 
of  Virginia  and  Maryland,  he  wondered  whether  their  education  on  Boston 
Common  had  taught  Savage  and  Marvin  how  to  die. 

If  violence  were  a  part  of  complete  education,  Boston  was  not 
incomplete.  The  idea  of  violence  was  familiar  to  the  anti-slavery  leaders 
as  well  as  to  their  followers.  Most  of  them  suffered  from  it.  Mobs 
were  always  possible.  Henry  never  happened  to  be  actually  concerned  in 
a  mob,  but  he  like  every  other  boy,  was  sure  to  be  on  hand  wherever  a 
mob  was  expected,  and  whenever  he  heard  Garrison  or  Wendell  Phillips 
speak,  he  looked  for  trouble.  Wendell  Phillips  on  a  platform  was  a  model 
dangerous  for  youth.  Theodore  Parker  in  his  pulpit  was  not  much  safer. 
Worst  of  all,  the  execution  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  in  Boston, — the 
sight  of  Court  Square  packed  with  bayonets,  and  his  own  friends  obliged 
to  line  the  streets  under  arms  as  State  militia,  in  order  to  return  a  negro 
to  slavery — wrought  frenzy  in  the  brain  of  a  fifteen-year-old,  eighteenth- 
century  boy  from  Quincy,  who  wanted  to  miss  no  reasonable  chance  of 
mischief. 

One  lived  in  the  atmosphere  of  the  Stamp  Act,  the  Tea  Tax,  and 
the  Boston  Massacre.  Within  Boston,  a  boy  was  first  an  eighteenth- 
century  politician,  and  afterwards  only  a  possibility ;  beyond  Boston 
the  first  step  led  only  further  into  politics.  After  February,  1848, 
but  one  slight  tie  remained  of  all  those  that,  since  1776,  had  connected 
Quincy  with  the  outer  world.  The  Madam  stayed  in  Washington,  after 
her  husband's  death,  and  in  her  turn  was  struck  by  paralysis  and  bed 
ridden.  From  time  to  time  her  son  Charles,  whose  affection  and  sympathy 
for  his  mother  in  her  many  tribulations  were  always  pronounced,  went 
on  to  see  her,  and  in  May,  1850,  he  took  with  him  his  twelve-year-old 


WASHINGTON  35 

son.  The  journey  was  meant  as  education,  and  as  education  it  served 
the  purpose  of  fixing  in  memory  the  stage  of  a  boy's  thought  in  1850. 
He  could  not  remember  taking  special  interest  in  the  railroad  journey 
or  in  New  York  ;  with  railways  and  cities  he  was  familiar  enough.  His 
first  impression  was  the  novelty  of  crossing  New  York  Bay  and  finding 
an  English  railway  carriage  on  the  Camden  &  Amboy  railroad.  This 
was  a  new  world ;  a  suggestion  of  corruption  in  the  simple  habits  of 
American  life ;  a  step  to  exclusiveness  never  approached  in  Boston ;  but 
it  was  amusing.  The  boy  rather  liked  it.  At  Trenton  the  train  set 
him  on  board  a  steamer  which  took  him  to  Philadelphia  where  he  smelt 
other  varieties  of  town-life ;  then  again  by  boat  to  Chester,  and  by  train 
to  Havre  de  Grace ;  by  boat  to  Baltimore  and  thence  by  rail  to  Wash 
ington.  This  was  the  journey  he  remembered.  The  actual  journey  may 
have  been  quite  different,  but  the  actual  journey  has  no  interest  for 
education.  The  memory  was  all  that  mattered ;  and  what  struck  him 
most,  to  remain  fresh  in  his  mind  all  his  life-time,  was  the  sudden  change 
that  came  over  the  world  on  entering  a  slave  State.  He  took  education 
politically.  The  mere  raggedness  of  outline  could  not  have  seemed 
wholly  new,  for  even  Boston  had  its  ragged  edges,  and  the  town  of 
Quincy  was  far  from  being  a  vision  of  neatness  or  good-repair ;  in  truth, 
he  had  never  seen  a  finished  landscape;  but  Maryland  was  raggedness 
of  a  new  kind.  The  railway,  about  the  size  and  character  of  a  modern 
train,  rambled  through  unfenced  fields  and  woods,  or  through  village 
streets,  among  a  haphasard  variety  of  pigs,  cows  and  negro  babies,  who 
might  all  have  used  the  cabins  for  pens  and  styes,  had  the  southern  pig 
required  styes,  but  who  never  showed  a  sign  of  care.  This  was  the  boy's 
impression  of  what  slavery  caused,  and,  for  him,  was  all  it  taught. 
Coming  down  in  the  early  morning  from  his  bed-room  in  his  grand 
mother's  house  —  still  called  the  Adams  building  —  in  F  Street,  and 
venturing  outside  into  the  air  reeking  with  the  thick  odor  of  the 
catalpa  trees,  he  found  himself  on  an  earth-road,  or  village  street,  with 
wheel-tracks  meandering  from  the  colonnade  of  the  Treasury  hard  by,  to 
the  white  marble  columns  and  fronts  of  the  Post  Office  and  Patent  Office 
which  faced  each  other  in  the  distance,  like  white  Greek  temples  in  the 
abandoned  gravel-pits  of  a  deserted  Syrian  city.  Here  and  there  low 
wooden  houses  were  scattered  along  the  streets,  as  in  other  southern 


36  THE   EDUCATION   OF  HENRY   ADAMS 

villages,  but  he  was  chiefly  attracted  by  an  unfinished  square  marble 
shaft,  half-a-mile  below,  and  he  walked  down  to  inspect  it  before  breakfast. 
His  aunt  drily  remarked  that,  at  this  rate,  he  would  soon  get  through  all 
the  sights;  but  she  could  not  guess, —  having  lived  always  in  Wash 
ington, — how  little  the  sights  of  Washington  had  to  do  with  its  interest. 

The  boy  could  not  have  told  her ;  he  was  nowhere  near  an  under 
standing  of  himself.  The  more  he  was  educated,  the  less  he  understood. 
Slavery  struck  him  in  the  face;  it  was  a  nightmare;  a  horror;  a  crime;  the 
sum  of  all  wickedness !  Contact  made  it  only  more  repulsive.  He  wanted 
to  escape,  like  the  negroes,  to  free  soil.  Slave  States  were  dirty,  unkempt, 
poverty-stricken,  ignorant,  vicious  !  He  had  not  a  thought  but  repulsion 
for  it ;  and  yet  the  picture  had  another  side.  The  May  sunshine  and 
shadow  had  something  to  do  with  it ;  the  thickness  of  foliage  and  the 
heavy  smells  had  more;  the  sense  of  atmosphere,  almost  new,  had  per 
haps  as  much  again ;  and  the  brooding  indolence  of  a  warm  climate 
and  a  negro  population  hung  in  the  atmosphere  heavier  than  the  catal- 
pas.  The  impression  was  not  simple,  but  the  boy  liked  it ;  distinctly  it 
remained  on  his  mind  as  an  attraction,  almost  obscuring  Quincy  itself. 
The  want  of  barriers,  of  pavements,  of  forms ;  the  looseness,  the  laziness ; 
the  indolent  southern  drawl ;  the  pigs  in  the  streets ;  the  negro  babies 
and  their  mothers  with  bandanas ;  the  freedom,  openness,  swagger,  of 
nature  and  man,  soothed  his  Johnson  blood.  Most  boys  would  have  felt 
it  in  the  same  way,  but  with  him  the  feeling  caught  on  to  an  inherit 
ance.  The  softness  of  his  gentle  old  grandmother  as  she  lay  in  bed  and 
chatted  with  him,  did  not  come  from  Boston.  His  aunt  was  anything 
rather  than  Boston  ian.  He  did  not  wholly  come  from  Boston  himself. 
Though  Washington  belonged  to  a  different  world,  and  the  two  worlds 
could  not  live  together,  he  was  not  sure  that  he  enjoyed  the  Boston 
world  most.  Even  at  twelve  years  old  he  could  see  his  own  nature  no 
more  clearly  than  he  would  at  twelve  hundred,  if  by  accident  he  should 
happen  to  live  so  long. 

His  father  took  him  to  the  Capitol  and  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate,  which 
then,  and  long  afterwards,  until  the  era  of  tourists,  was  freely  open  to 
visitors.  The  old  Senate  Chamber  resembled  a  pleasant  political  club. 
Standing  behind  the  Vice-President's  chair,  which  is  now  the  Chief  Justice's, 
the  boy  was  presented  to  some  of  the  men  whose  names  were  great  in  their 


WASHINGTON  37 

day,  and  as  familiar  to  him  as  his  own.  Clay  and  Webster  and  Calhoun 
were  there  still,  but  with  them  a  Free  Soil  candidate  for  the  Vice- 
Presidency  had  little  to  do ;  what  struck  boys  most  was  their  type. 
Senators  were  a  species;  they  all  wore  an  air,  as  they  wore  a  blue 
dress  coat  or  brass  buttons' ;  they  were  Roman.  The  type  of  Senator 
in  1850  was  rather  charming  at  its  best,  and  the  Senate,  when  in  good 
temper,  was  an  agreeable  body,  numbering  only  some  sixty  members, 
and  affecting  the  airs  of  courtesy.  Its  vice  was  not  so  much  a  vice 
of  manners  or  temper  as  of  attitude.  The  statesman  of  all  periods  was 
apt  to  be  pompous,  but  even  pomposity  was  less  offensive  than  famil 
iarity, — on  the  platform  as  in  the  pulpit, — and  southern  pomposity,  when 
not  arrogant,  was  genial  and  sympathetic,  almost  quaint  and  childlike 
in  its  simple-mindedness ;  quite  a  different  thing  from  the  Websterian 
or  Conklinian  pomposity  of  the  north.  The  boy  felt  at  ease  there, 
more  at  home  than  he  had  ever  felt  in  Boston  State  House,  though 
his  acquaintance  with  the  cod-fish  in  the  Boston  Senate  Chamber  went 
back  beyond  distinct  recollection.  Senators  spoke  kindly  to  him,  and 
seemed  to  feel  so,  for  they  had  known  his  family  socially ;  and,  in 
spite  of  slavery,  even  J.  Q.  Adams  in  his  later  years,  after  he  ceased 
to  stand  in  the  way  of  rivals,  had  few  personal  enemies.  Decidedly 
the  Senate,  pro-slavery  though  it  were,  seemed  a  friendly  world. 

This  first  step  in  national  politics  was  a  little  like  the  walk  before 
breakfast ;  an  easy,  careless,  genial,  enlarging  stride  into  a  fresh  and 
amusing  world,  where  nothing  was  finished  but  where  even  the  weeds 
grew  rank.  The  second  step  was  like  the  first,  except  that  it  led  to 
the  White  House.  He  was  taken  to  see  President  Taylor.  Outside, 
in  a  paddock  in  front,  "  Old  Whitey "  the  President's  charger,  was 
grazing,  as  they  entered ;  and  inside,  the  President  was  receiving  callers 
as  simply  as  if  he  were  in  the  paddock  too.  The  President  was  friendly, 
and  the  boy  felt  no  sense  of  strangeness  that  he  could  ever  recall. 
In  fact,  what  strangeness  should  he  feel  ?  The  families  were  intimate ; 
so  intimate  that  their  friendliness  outlived  generations,  civil  war,  and 
all  sorts  of  rupture.  President  Taylor  owed  his  election  to  Martin  Van 
Buren  and  the  Free  Soil  party.  To  him,  the  Adamses  might  still  be 
of  use.  As  for  the  White  House,  all  the  boy's  family  had  lived  there, 
and,  barring  the  eight  years  of  Andrew  Jackson's  reign,  had  been  more 


38  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

or  less  at  home  there  ever  since  it  was  built.  The  boy  half  thought 
he  owned  it,  and  took  for  granted  that  he  should  some  day  live  in 
it.  He  felt  no  sensation  whatever  before  Presidents.  A  President  was 
a  matter  of  course  in  every  respectable  family ;  he  had  two  in  his 
own ;  — three,  if  he  counted  old  Nathaniel  Gorham,  who  was  the  oldest 
and  first  in  distinction.  Revolutionary  patriots,  or  perhaps  a  Colonial 
Governor,  might  be  worth  talking  about,  but  any  one  could  be  Presi 
dent,  and  some  very  shady  characters  were  likely  to  be.  Presidents, 
Senators,  Congressmen  and  such  things  were  swarming  in  every  street. 

Everyone  thought  alike  whether  they  had  ancestors  or  not.  No 
sort  of  glory  hedged  Presidents  as  such,  and,  in  the  whole  country,  one 
could  hardly  have  met  with  an  admission  of  respect  for  any  office  or 
name,  unless  it  were  George  Washington.  That  was, — to  all  appearance 
sincerely, — respected.  People  made  pilgrimages  to  Mount  Vernon  and 
made  even  an  effort  to  build  Washington  a  monument.  The  effort  had 
failed,  but  one  still  went  to  Mount  Vernon,  although  it  was  no  easy  trip. 
Mr.  Adams  took  the  boy  there  in  a  carriage  and  pair,  over  a  road  that 
gave  him  a  complete  Virginia  education  for  use  ten  years  afterwards. 
To  the  New  England  mind,  roads,  schools,  clothes,  and  a  clean  face  were 
connected  as  part  of  the  law  of  order  or  divine  system.  Bad  roads  meant 
bad  morals.  The  moral  of  this  Virginia  road  was  clear,  and  the  boy 
fully  learned  it.  Slavery  was  wicked,  and  slavery  was  the  cause  of  this 
road's  badness  which  amounted  to  social  crime ; — and  yet,  at  the  end 
of  the  road  and  product  of  the  crime  stood  Mount  Vernon  and  George 
Washington. 

Luckily  boys  accept  contradictions  as  readily  as  their  elders  do,  or 
this  boy  might  have  become  prematurely  wise.  He  had  only  to  repeat 
what  he  was  told,  —  that  George  Washington  stood  alone.  Otherwise 
this  third  step  in  his  Washington  education  would  have  been  his  last. 
On  that  line,  the  problem  of  progress  was  not  soluble,  whatever  the 
optimists  and  orators  might  say, — or,  for  that  matter,  whatever  they  might 
think.  George  Washington  could  not  be  reached  on  Boston  lines.  George 
Washington  was  a  primary,  or,  if  Virginians  liked  it  better,  an  ultimate 
relation,  like  the  Pole  Star,  and  amid  the  endless  restless  motion  of  every 
other  visible  point  in  space,  he  alone  remained  steady,  in  the  mind  of 
Henry  Adams,  to  the  end.  All  the  other  points  shifted  their  bearings; 


WASHINGTON  39 

John  Adams,  Jefferson,  Madison,  Franklin,  even  John  Marshall,  took 
varied  lights,  and  assumed  new  relations,  but  Mount  Vernon  always 
remained  where  it  was,  with  no  practicable  road  to  reach  it ;  and  yet, 
when  he  got  there,  Mount  Vernon  was  only  Quincy  in  a  southern 
setting.  No  doubt  it  was  much  more  charming,  but  it  was  the  same 
eighteenth-century,  the  same  old  furniture,  the  same  old  patriot,  and  the 
same  old  President. 

The  boy  took  to  it  instinctively.  The  broad  Potomac  and  the 
coons  in  the  trees ;  the  bandanas  and  the  box-hedges ;  the  bed-rooms 
up-stairs  and  the  porch  outside;  even  Martha  Washington  herself  in 
memory,  were  as  natural  as  the  tides  and  the  May  sunshine;  he  had 
only  enlarged  his  horizon  a  little ;  but  he  never  thought  to  ask  himself 
or  his  father  how  to  deal  with  the  moral  problem  that  deduced  George 
Washington  from  the  sum  of  all  wickedness.  In  practice,  such  trifles  as 
contradictions  in  principle  are  easily  set  aside ;  the  faculty  of  ignoring 
them  makes  the  practical  man ;  but  any  attempt  to  deal  with  them 
seriously  as  education  is  fatal.  Luckily  Charles  Francis  Adams  never 
preached  and  was  singularly  free  from  cant.  He  may  have  had  views 
of  his  own,  but  he  let  his  son  Henry  satisfy  himself  with  the  simple 
elementary  fact  that  George  Washington  stood  alone. 

Life  was  not  yet  complicated.  Every  problem  had  a  solution,  even 
the  negro.  The  boy  went  back  to  Boston  more  political  than  ever,  and 
his  politics  were  no  longer  so  modern  as  the  eighteenth  century,  but 
took  a  strong  tone  of  the  seventeenth.  Slavery  drove  the  whole  puritan 
community  back  on  its  puritanism.  The  boy  thought  as  dogmatically  as 
though  he  were  one  of  his  own  ancestors.  The  Slave  Power  took  the 
place  of  Stuart  Kings  and  Roman  Popes.  Education  could  go  no  further 
in  that  course,  and  ran  off  into  emotion ;  but,  as  the  boy  gradually 
found  his  surroundings  change,  and  felt  himself  no  longer  an  isolated 
atom  in  a  hostile  universe,  but  a  sort  of  herring-fry  in  a  shoal  of  moving 
fish,  he  began  to  learn  the  first  and  easier  lessons  of  practical  politics. 
Thus  far  he  had  seen  nothing  but  eighteenth-century  statesmanship. 
America  and  he  began,  at  the  same  time,  to  become  aware  of  a  new 
force  under  the  innocent  surface  of  party  machinery.  Even  at  that  early 
moment,  a  rather  slow  boy  felt  dimly  conscious  that  he  might  meet  some 
personal  difficulties  in  trying  to  reconcile  sixteenth-century  principles 


40  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

and  eighteenth-century  statesmanship  with  late  nineteenth-century  party- 
organization.  The  first  vague  sense  of  feeling  an  unknown  living  ob 
stacle  in  the  dark  came  in  1851. 

The  Free  Soil  conclave  in  Mount  Vernon  Street  belonged,  as  already 
said,  to  the  statesman  class,  and,  like  Daniel  Webster,  had  nothing  to  do 
with  machinery.  Websters  or  Sewards  depended  on  others  for  machine 
work  and  money, — on  Peter  Harveys  and  Thurlow  Weeds,  who  spent 
their  lives  in  it,  took  most  of  the  abuse,  and  asked  no  reward.  Almost 
without  knowing  it,  the  subordinates  ousted  their  employers  and  created 
a  machine  which  no  one  but  themselves  could  run.  In  1850  things  had 
not  quite  reached  that  point.  The  men  who  ran  the  small  Free  Soil 
machine  were  still  modest,  though  they  became  famous  enough  in  their 
own  right.  Henry  Wilson,  John  B.  Alley,  Anson  Burlingame,  and  the 
other  managers,  negotiated  a  bargain  with  the  Massachusetts  Democrats 
giving  the  State  to  the  Democrats  and  a  seat  in  the  Senate  to  the  Free 
Soilers.  .With  this  bargain  Mr.  Adams  and  his  statesmen  friends  would 
have  nothing  to  do,  for  such  a  coalition  was  in  their  eyes  much  like 
jockeys  selling  a  race.  They  did  not  care  to  take  office  as  pay  for  votes 
sold  to  pro-slavery  Democrats.  Theirs  was  a  correct,  not  to  say  noble 
position ;  but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  they  took  the  benefit  of  the  sale,  for 
the  coalition  chose  Charles  Sumner  as  its  candidate  for  the  Senate,  while 
George  S.  Boutwell  was  made  Governor  for  the  Democrats.  This  was 
the  boy's  first  lesson  in  practical  politics,  and  a  sharp  one ;  not  that  he 
troubled  himself  with  moral  doubts,  but  that  he  learned  the  nature  of  a 
flagrantly  corrupt  political  bargain  in  which  he  was  too  good  to  take 
part  but  not  too  good  to  take  profit.  Charles  Sumner  happened  to  be 
the  partner  to  receive  these  stolen  goods,  but  between  his  friend  and  his 
father  the  boy  felt  no  distinction,  and,  for  him,  there  was  none.  He 
entered  into  no  casuistry  on  the  matter.  His  friend  was  right  because 
his  friend,  and  the  boy  shared  the  glory.  The  question  of  education  did 
not  rise  while  the  conflict  lasted.  Yet  everyone  saw  as  clearly  then  as 
afterwards  that  a  lesson  of  some  sort  must  be  learned  and  understood, 
once  for  all.  The  boy  might  ignore,  as  a  mere  historical  puzzle,  the 
question  how  to  deduce  George  Washington  from  the  sum  of  all  wicked 
ness,  but  he  had  himself  helped  to  deduce  Charles  Sumner  from  the  sum 
of  political  corruption.  On  that  line,  too,  education  could  not  go  further. 
Tammany  Hall  stood  at  the  end  of  the  vista. 


WASHINGTON  41 

Mr.  Alley,  one  of  the  strictest  of  moralists,  held  that  his  object  in 
making  the  bargain  was  to  convert  the  democratic  party  to  anti-slavery 
principles,  and  that  he  did  it.  Henry  Adams  could  rise  to  no  such 
moral  elevation.  He  was  only  a  boy,  and  his  object  in  supporting  the 
coalition  was  that  of  making  his  friend  a  Senator.  It  was  as  personal 
as  though  he  had  helped  to  make  his  friend  a  millionaire.  He  could 
never  find  a  way  of  escaping  immoral  conclusions,  except  by  admitting 
that  he  and  his  father  and  Sumner  were  wrong,  and  this  he  was  never 
willing  to  do,  for  the  consequences  of  this  admission  were  worse  than 
those  of  the  other.  Thus  before  he  was  fifteen  years  old,  he  had  managed 
to  get  himself  into  a  state  of  moral  confusion  from  which  he  never 
escaped.  As  a  politician,  he  was  already  corrupt,  and  he  never  could 
see  how  any  practical  politician  could  be  less  corrupt  than  himself. 

Apology,  as  he  understood  himself,  was  cant  or  cowardice.  At  the 
time  he  never  even  dreamed  that  he  needed  to  apologise,  though  the  press 
shouted  it  at  him  from  every  corner,  and  though  the  Mount  Vernon 
Street  conclave  agreed  with  the  press ;  yet  he  could  not  plead  ignorance, 
and  even  in  the  heat  of  the  conflict,  he  never  cared  to  defend  the 
coalition.  Boy  as  he  was,  he  knew  enough  to  know  that  something  was 
wrong,  but  his  only  interest  was  the  election.  Day  after  day,  the  General 
Court  balloted ;  and  the  boy  haunted  the  gallery,  following  the  roll-call, 
and  wondered  what  Caleb  Gushing  meant  by  calling  Mr.  Sumner  a  "  one- 
eyed  abolitionist."  Truly  the  difference  in  meaning  with  the  phrase 
"one-idead  abolitionist,"  which  was  Mr.  Cushing's  actual  expression,  is 
not  very  great,  but  neither  the  one  nor  the  other  seemed  to  describe  Mr. 
Sumner  to  the  boy,  who  never  could  have  made  the  error  of  classing 
Garrison  and  Sumner  together,  or  mistaking  Caleb  Cushing's  relation 
to  either.  Temper  ran  high  at  that  moment,  while  Sumner  every  day 
missed  his  election  by  only  one  or  two  votes.  At  last,  April  24,  1851, 
standing  among  the  silent  crowd  in  the  gallery,  Henry  heard  the  vote 
announced  which  gave  Sumner  the  needed  number.  Slipping  under  the 
arms  of  the  bystanders,  he  ran  home  as  hard  as  he  could,  and  burst 
into  the  dining-room  where  Mr.  Sumner  was  seated  at  table  with  the 
family.  He  enjoyed  the  glory  of  telling  Sumner  that  he  was  elected ;  it 
was  probably  the  proudest  moment  in  the  life  of  either. 

The  next  day,  when  the  boy  went  to  school,  he  noticed  numbers  of 


42  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

boys  and  men  in  the  streets  wearing  black  crape  on  their  arm.  He 
knew  few  Free  Soil  boys  in  Boston ;  his  acquaintances  were  what  he 
called  pro-slavery ;  so  he  thought  proper  to  tie  a  bit  of  white  silk-ribbon 
round  his  own  arm  by  way  of  showing  that  his  friend  Mr.  Sumner  was 
not  wholly  alone.  This  little  piece  of  bravado  passed  unnoticed ;  no  one 
even  cuffed  his  ears ;  but  in  later  life  he  was  a  little  puzzled  to  decide 
which  symbol  was  the  more  correct.  No  one  then  dreamed  of  four 
years'  war,  but  everyone  dreamed  of  secession.  The  symbol  for  either 
might  well  be  matter  of  doubt. 

This  triumph  of  the  Mount  Vernon  Street  conclave  capped  the 
political  climax.  The  boy,  like  a  million  other  American  boys,  was  a 
politician,  and  what  was  worse,  fit  as  yet  to  be  nothing  else.  He  should 
have  been,  like  his  grandfather,  a  protege  of  George  Washington,  a 
statesman  designated  by  destiny,  with  nothing  to  do  but  look  directly 
ahead,  follow  orders,  and  march.  On  the  contrary,  he  was  not  even 
a  Bostonian ;  he  felt  himself  shut  out  of  Boston  as  though  he  were 
an  exile ;  he  never  thought  of  himself  as  a  Bostonian ;  he  never  looked 
about  him  in  Boston,  as  boys  commonly  do  wherever  they  are,  to  select 
the  street  they  like  best,  the  house  they  want  to  live  in,  the  profes 
sion  they  mean  to  practice.  Always  he  felt  himself  somewhere  else ; 
perhaps  in  Washington  with  its  social  ease ;  perhaps  in  Europe ;  and 
he  watched  with  vague  unrest  from  the  Quincy  hills  the  smoke  of 
the  Cunard  steamers  stretching  in  a  long  line  to  the  horizon,  and 
disappearing  every  other  Saturday  or  whatever  the  day  might  be,  as 
though  the  steamers  were  offering  to  take  him  away,  which  was  pre 
cisely  what  they  were  doing. 

Had  these  ideas  been  unreasonable,  influences  enough  were  at  hand 
to  correct  them ;  but  the  point  of  the  whole  story,  when  Henry  Adams 
came  to  look  back  on  it,  seemed  to  be  that  the  ideas  were  more  than 
reasonable ;  they  were  the  logical,  necessary,  mathematical  result  of  con 
ditions  old  as  history  and  fixed  as  fate ; — invariable  sequence  in  man's 
experience.  The  only  idea  which  would  have  been  quite  unreasonable 
scarcely  entered  his  mind.  This  was  the  thought  of  going  westward 
and  growing  up  with  the  country.  That  he  was  not  in  the  least  fitted 
for  going  west  made  no  objection  whatever,  since  he  was  much  better 
fitted  than  most  of  the  persons  that  went.  The  convincing  reason  for 


WASHINGTON  43 

staying  in  the  east  was  that  he  had  there  every  advantage  over  the 
west.  He  could  not  go  wrong.  The  west  must  inevitably  pay  an  enor 
mous  tribute  to  Boston  and  New  York.  One's  position  in  the  east 
was  the  best  in  the  world  for  every  purpose  that  could  offer  an  object 
for  going  westward.  If  ever  in  history  men  had  been  able  to  calcu 
late  on  a  certainty  for  a  life-time  in  advance,  the  citizens  of  the  great 
eastern  seaports  could  do  it  in  1850  when  their  railway  systems  were 
already  laid  out.  Neither  to  a  politician  nor  to  a  business-man  nor 
to  any  of  the  learned  professions  did  the  west  promise  any  certain  ad 
vantage,  while  it  offered  uncertainties  in  plenty. 

At  any  other  moment  in  human  history,  this  education,  including 
its  political  and  literary  bias,  would  have  been  not  only  good,  but  quite 
the  best.  Society  had  always  welcomed  and  flattered  men  so  endowed. 
Henry  Adams  had  every  reason  to  be  well  pleased  with  it,  and  not  ill- 
pleased  with  himself.  He  had  all  he  wanted.  He  saw  no  reason  for 
thinking  that  anyone  else  had  more.  He  finished  with  school,  not  very 
brilliantly,  but  without  finding  fault  with  the  sum  of  his  knowledge. 
Probably  he  knew  more  than  his  father,  or  his  grandfather,  or  his  great 
grandfather  had  known  at  sixteen  years  old.  Only  on  looking  back, 
fifty  years  later,  at  his  own  figure  in  1854,  and  pondering  on  the  needs 
of  the  twentieth  century,  he  wondered  whether,  on  the  whole,  the 
boy  of  1854  stood  nearer  to  the  thought  of  1904,  or  to  that  of  the  year  1. 
He  found  himself  unable  to  give  a  sure  answer.  The  calculation  was 
clouded  by  the  undetermined  values  of  twentieth-century  thought,  but 
the  story  will  show  his  reasons  for  thinking  that,  in  essentials  like 
religion,  ethics,  philosophy ;  in  history,  literature,  art ;  in  the  concepts 
of  all  science,  except  perhaps  mathematics,  the  American  boy  of  1854 
stood  nearer  the  year  1  than  to  the  year  1900.  The  education  he  had 
received  bore  little  relation  to  the  education  he  needed.  Speaking  as  an 
American  of  1900,  he  had  as  yet  no  education  at  all.  He  know  not  even 
where  or  how  to  begin. 


CHAPTER    IV 

1854-1858 

One  day  in  June,  1854,  young  Adams  walked  for  the  last  time 
down  the  steps  of  Mr.  Dixwell's  school  in  Boylston  Place,  and  felt  no 
sensation  but  one  of  unqualified  joy  that  this  experience  was  ended. 
Never  before  or  afterwards  in  his  life  did  he  close  a  period  so  long  as 
four  years  without  some  sensation  of  loss — some  sentiment  of  habit — 
but  school  was  what  in  after  life  he  commonly  heard  his  friends 
denounce  as  an  intolerable  bore.  He  was  born  too  old  for  it.  The 
same  thing  could  be  said  of  most  New  England  boys.  Mentally  they 
never  were  boys.  Their  education  as  men  should  have  begun  at  ten 
years  old.  They  were  fully  five  years  more  mature  than  the  English  or 
European  boy  for  whom  schools  were  made.  For  the  purposes  of  future 
advancement,  as  afterwards  appeared,  these  first  six  years  of  a  possible  educa 
tion  were  wasted  in  doing  imperfectly  what  might  have  been  done  perfectly 
in  one,  and  in  any  case  would  have  had  small  value.  The  next  regular 
step  was  Harvard  College.  He  was  more  than  glad  to  go.  For 
generation  after  generation,  Adamses  and  Brookses  and  Boylstous  and 
Gorhams  had  gone  to  Harvard  College,  and  although  none  of  them,  as 
far  as  known,  had  ever  done  any  good  there,  or  thought  himself  the 
better  for  it,  custom,  social  ties,  convenience,  and,  above  all,  economy, 
kept  each  generation  in  the  track.  Any  other  education  would  have 
required  a  serious  effort,  but  no  one  took  Harvard  College  seriously. 
All  went  there  because  their  friends  went  there,  and  the  College  was 
their  ideal  of  social  self-respect. 

Harvard  College,  as  far  as  it  educated  at  all,  was  a  mild  and  liberal 
school,  which  sent  young  men  into  the  world  with  all  they  needed  to 
44 


HARVARD  COLLEGE  45 

make  respectable  citizens,  and  something  of  what  they  wanted  to  make 
useful  ones.  Leaders  of  men  it  never  tried  to  make.  Its  ideals  were 
altogether  different.  The  Unitarian  clergy  had  given  to  the  College  a 
character  of  moderation,  balance,  judgment,  restraint,  what  the  French 
called  mesure;  excellent  traits,  which  the  College  attained  with  singular 
success,  so  that  its  graduates  could  commonly  be  recognised  by  the  stamp, 
but  such  a  type  of  character  rarely  lent  itself  to  autobiography.  In 
effect,  the  school  created  a  type  but  not  a  will.  Four  years  of  Harvard 
College,  if  successful,  resulted  in  an  autobiographical  blank,  a  mind  on 
which  only  a  water-mark  had  been  stamped. 

The  stamp,  as  such  things  went,  was  a  good  one.  The  chief  wonder 
of  education  is  that  it  does  not  ruin  everybody  concerned  in  it,  teachers 
and  taught.  Sometimes  in  after  life,  Adams  debated  whether  in  fact  it 
had  not  ruined  him  and  most  of  his  companions,  but,  disappointment 
apart,  Harvard  College  was  probably  less  hurtful  than  any  other  Univer 
sity  then  in  existence.  It  taught  little,  and  that  little  ill,  but  it  left 
the  mind  open,  free  from  bias,  ignorant  of  facts,  but  docile.  The  graduate 
had  few  strong  prejudices.  He  knew  little,  but  his  mind  remained 
supple,  ready  to  receive  knowledge. 

What  caused  the  boy  most  disappointment  was  the  little  he  got 
from  his  mates.  Speaking  exactly,  he  got  less  than  nothing,  a  result 
common  enough  in  education.  Yet  the  College  Catalogue  for  the  years 
1854-1861  shows  a  list  of  names  rather  distinguished  in  their  time. 
Alexander  Agassiz  and  Phillips  Brooks  led  it ;  H.  H.  Richardson  and 
O.  W.  Holmes  helped  to  close  it.  As  a  rule  the  most  promising  of 
all  die  early,  and  never  get  their  names  into  a  Dictionary  of  Con 
temporaries  which  seems  to  be  the  only  popular  standard  of  success. 
Many  died  in  the  war.  Adams  knew  them  all,  more  or  less ;  he  felt 
as  much  regard,  and  quite  as  much  respect  for  them  then,  as  he  did 
after  they  won  great  names  and  were  objects  of  a  vastly  wider  respect ; 
but,  as  help  towards  education,  he  got  nothing  whatever  from  them  or 
they  from  him  until  long  after  they  had  left  College.  Possibly  the 
fault  was  his,  but  one  would  like  to  know  how  many  others  shared 
it.  Accident  counts  for  much  in  companionship  as  in  marriage.  Life 
offers  perhaps  only  a  score  of  possible  companions,  and  it  is  mere 
chance  whether  they  meet  as  early  as  school  or  college,  but  it  is  more 


46  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

than  a  chance  that  boys  brought  up  together  under  like  conditions 
have  nothing  to  give  each  other.  The  Class  of  1858,  to  which  Henry 
Adams  belonged,  was  a  typical  collection  of  young  New  Englanders, 
quietly  penetrating  and  aggressively  commonplace ;  free  from  meannesses, 
jealousies,  intrigues,  enthusiasms  and  passions ;  not  exceptionally  quick ; 
not  consciously  sceptical ;  singularly  indifferent  to  display,  artifice,  florid 
expression,  but  not  hostile  to  it  when  it  amused  them ;  distrustful 
of  themselves,  but  little  disposed  to  trust  anyone  else ;  with  not  much 
humor  of  their  own,  but  full  of  readiness  to  enjoy  the  humor  of 
others ;  negative  to  a  degree  that  in  the  long  run  became  positive 
and  triumphant.  Not  harsh  in  manners  or  judgment,  rather  liberal 
and  open-minded,  they  were  still  as  a  body  the  most  formidable  critics 
one  would  care  to  meet,  in  a  long  life  exposed  to  criticism.  They 
never  flattered,  seldom  praised ;  free  from  vanity,  they  were  not  in 
tolerant  of  it;  but  they  were  objectiveness  itself;  their  attitude  was 
a  law  of  nature ;  their  judgment  beyond  appeal,  not  an  act  either  of 
intellect  or  emotion  or  of  will,  but  a  sort  of  gravitation. 

This  was  Harvard  College  incarnate,  but  even  for  Harvard  College, 
the  Class  of  1858  was  somewhat  extreme.  Of  unity  this  band  of  nearly 
one  hundred  young  men  had  no  keen  sense,  but  they  had  equally  little 
energy  of  repulsion.  They  were  pleasant  to  live  with,  and  above  the 
average  of  students, — :German,  French,  English  or  what  not, — but  chiefly 
because  each  individual  appeared  satisfied  to  stand  alone.  It  seemed  a 
sign  of  force ;  yet  to  stand  alone  is  quite  natural  when  one  has  no 
passions;  still  easier  when  one  has  no  pains. 

Into  this  unusually  dissolvent  medium,  chance  insisted  on  enlarging 
Henry  Adams's  education  by  tossing  a  trio  of  Virginians  as  little  fitted 
for  it  as  Sioux  Indians  to  a  tread-mill.  By  some  further  affinity,  these 
three  outsiders  fell  into  relation  with  the  Bostonians  among  whom  Adams 
as  a  school-boy  belonged,  and  in  the  end  with  Adams  himself,  although 
they  and  he  knew  well  how  thin  an  edge  of  friendship  separated  them 
in  1856  from  mortal  enmity.  One  of  these  Virginians  was  the  son  of 
Colonel  Robert  E.  Lee  of  the  2d  U.  S.  Cavalry ;  the  two  others  who 
seemed  instinctively  to  form  a  staff  for  Lee,  were  town- Virginians  from 
Petersburg.  A  fourth  outsider  came  from  Cincinnati  and  was  half  Ken- 
tuckian,  N.  L.  Anderson,  Longworth  on  the  mother's  side.  For  the  first 


HARVARD  COLLEGE  47 

time,  Adams's  education  brought  him  in  contact  with  new  types  and 
taught  him  their  values.  He  saw  the  New  England  type  measure  itself 
with  another,  and  he  was  part  of  the  process. 

Lee,  known  through  life  as  "  Roony,"  was  a  Virginian  of  the  eigh 
teenth  century,  much  as  Henry  Adams  was  a  Bostonian  of  the  same  age. 
Roony  Lee  had  changed  little  from  the  type  of  his  grandfather,  Light  Horse 
Harry.  Tall,  largely  built,  handsome,  genial,  with  liberal  Virginian 
openness  towards  all  he  liked,  he  had  also  the  Virginian  habit  of  com 
mand  and  took  leadership  as  his  natural  habit.  No  one  cared  to  contest 
it.  None  of  the  New  Englanders  wanted  command.  For  a  year, 
at  least,  Lee  was  the  most  popular  and  prominent  young  man  in  his  class, 
but  then  seemed  slowly  to  drop  into  the  background.  The  habit  of  com 
mand  was  not  enough,  and  the  Virginian  had  little  else.  He  was  simple 
beyond  analysis;  so  simple  that  even  the  simple  New  England  student 
could  not  realize  him.  No  one  knew  enough  to  know  how  ignorant  he 
was ;  how  childlike ;  how  helpless  before  the  relative  complexity  of  a 
school.  As  an  animal,  the  southerner  seemed  to  have  every  advantage, 
but  even  as  an  animal  he  steadily  lost  ground. 

The  lesson  in  education  was  vital  to  these  young  men,  who,  within 
ten  years,  killed  each  other  by  scores  in  the  act  of  testing  their  college 
conclusions.  Strictly,  the  southerner  had  no  mind ;  he  had  temperament. 
He  was  not  a  scholar ;  he  had  no  intellectual  training ;  he  could  not 
analyse  an  idea,  and  he  could  not  even  conceive  of  admitting  two ;  but 
in  life  one  could  get  along  very  well  without  ideas,  if  one  had  only  the 
social  instinct.  Dozens  of  United  States  Senators  were  men  of  Lee's 
type,  and  maintained  themselves  well  enough  in  the  Senate,  but  College 
was  a  sharper  test.  The  Virginian  was  weak  in  vice  itself,  though  the 
Bostonian  was  hardly  a  master  of  crime.  The  habits  of  neither  were 
good ;  both  were  apt  to  drink  hard  and  to  live  low  lives ;  but  the 
Bostonian  suffered  less  than  the  Virginian.  Commonly  the  Bostonian 
could  take  some  care  of  himself  even  in  his  worst  stages,  while  the 
Virginian  became  quarrelsome  and  dangerous.  When  a  Virginian  had 
brooded  a  few  days  over  an  imaginary  grief  and  substantial  whiskey, 
none  of  his  northern  friends  could  be  sure  that  he  might  not  be  waiting, 
round  the  corner,  with  a  knife  or  pistol,  to  revenge  insult  by  the 
dry  light  of  delirium  tremens ;  and  when  things  reached  this  condition, 


48  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

Lee  had  to  exhaust  his  authority  over  his  own  staff.  Lee  was  a 
gentleman  of  the  old  school,  and,  as  everyone  knows,  gentlemen  of  the 
old  school  drank  almost  as  much  as  gentlemen  of  the  new  school ;  but 
this  was  not  his  trouble.  He  was  sober  even  in  the  excessive  violence  of 
political  feeling  in  those  years ;  he  kept  his  temper  and  his  friends 
under  control. 

Adams  liked  the  Virginians.  No  one  was  more  obnoxious  to  them,  by 
name  and  prejudice ;  yet  their  friendship  was  unbroken  and  even  warm. 
At  a  moment  when  the  immediate  future  posed  no  problem  in  education 
so  vital  as  the  relative  energy  and  endurance  of  North  and  South,  this 
momentary  contact  with  southern  character  was  a  sort  of  education 
for  its  own  sake ;  but  this  was  not  all.  No  doubt  the  self-esteem  of  the 
Yankee,  which  tended  naturally  to  self-distrust,  was  flattered  by  gaining 
the  slow  conviction  that  the  southerner,  with  his  slave-owning  limitations, 
was  as  little  fit  to  succeed  in  the  struggle  of  modern  life  as  though  he 
were  still  a  maker  of  stone-axes,  living  in  caves,  and  hunting  the  bos 
primigenius,  and  that  every  quality  in  which  he  was  strong,  made  him 
weaker ;  but  Adams  had  begun  to  fear  that  even  in  this  respect  one 
eighteenth-century  type  might  not  differ  deeply  from  another.  Roony 
Lee  had  changed  little  from  the  Virginian  of  a  century  before ;  but 
Adams  was  himself  a  good  deal  nearer  the  type  of  his  great-grandfather 
than  to  that  of  a  railway  superintendent.  He  was  little  more  fit  than  the 
Virginians  to  deal  with  a  future  America  which  showed  no  fancy  for  the 
past.  Already  northern  society  betrayed  a  preference  for  economists  over 
diplomats  or  soldiers, — one  might  even  call  it  a  jealousy, — against  which  two 
eighteenth-century  types  had  little  chance  to  live,  and  which  they  had 
in  common  to  fear. 

Nothing  short  of  this  curious  sympathy  could  have  brought  into 
close  relations  two  young  men  so  hostile  as  Roony  Lee  and  Henry 
Adams,  but  the  chief  difference  between  them  as  collegians  consisted  only 
in  their  difference  of  scholarship : — Lee  was  a  total  failure ;  Adams  a 
partial  one.  Both  failed,  but  Lee  felt  his  failure  more  sensibly,  so  that 
he  gladly  seized  the  chance  of  escape  by  accepting  a  commission  offered 
him  by  General  Winfield  Scott  in  the  force  then  being  organized  against 
the  Mormons.  He  asked  Adams  to  write  his  letter  of  acceptance, 
which  flattered  Adams's  vanity  more  than  any  northern  compliment  could 


HARVARD  COLLEGE  49 

do,  because,  in  days  of  violent  political  bitterness,  it  showed  a  certain 
amount  of  good  temper.  The  diplomate  felt  his  profession. 

If  the  student  got  little  from  his  mates,  he  got  little  more  from 
his  masters.  The  four  years  passed  at  College,  were  for  his  purposes, 
wasted.  Harvard  College  was  a  good  school,  but  at  bottom  what  the 
boy  disliked  most  was  any  school  at  all.  He  did  not  want  to  be  one 
in  a  hundred, — one  per  cent,  of  an  education.  He  regarded  himself  as 
the  only  person  for  whom  his  education  had  value,  and  he  wanted  the 
whole  of  it.  He  got  barely  half  of  an  average.  Long  afterwards,  when 
the  devious  path  of  life  led  him  back  to  teach  in  his  turn  what  no 
student  naturally  cared  or  needed  to  know,  he  diverted  some  dreary 
hours  of  Faculty-meetings  by  looking  up  his  record  in  the  class-lists, 
and  found  himself  graded  precisely  in  the  middle.  In  the  one  branch 
he  most  needed, — mathematics, — barring  the  few  first  scholars,  failure 
was  so  nearly  universal  that  no  attempt  at  grading  could  have  had 
value,  and  whether  he  stood  fortieth  or  ninetieth  must  have  been  an 
accident  or  the  personal  favor  of  the  professor.  Here  his  education 
failed  lamentably.  At  best  he  could  never  have  been  a  mathematician ; 
at  worst  he  would  never  have  cared  to  be  one ;  but  he  needed  to  read 
mathematics,  like  any  other  universal  language,  and  he  never  reached 
the  alphabet. 

Beyond  two  or  three  Greek  plays,  the  student  got  nothing  from  the 
ancient  languages.  Beyond  some  incoherent  theories  of  free-trade  and 
protection,  he  got  little  from  Political  Economy.  He  could  not  afterwards 
remember  to  have  heard  the  name  of  Karl  Marx  mentioned,  or  the  title 
of  "  Capital."  He  was  equally  ignorant  of  Auguste  Comte.  These  were 
the  two  writers  of  his  time  who  most  influenced  its  thought.  The  bit  of 
practical  teaching  he  afterwards  reviewed  with  most  curiosity  was  the 
course  in  Chemistry,  which  taught  him  a  number  of  theories  that  befogged 
his  mind  for  a  life-time.  The  only  teaching  that  appealed  to  his 
imagination  was  a  course  of  lectures  by  Louis  Agassiz  on  the  Glacial 
Period  and  Palaeontology,  which  had  more  influence  on  his  curiosity  than 
the  rest  of  the  college  instruction  altogether.  The  entire  work  of  the  four 
years  could  have  been  easily  put  into  the  work  of  any  four  months  in 
after-life. 

Harvard  College  was  a  negative  force,  and  negative  forces  have  value. 
4 


50  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

Slowly  it  weakened  the  violent  political  bias  of  childhood,  not  by 
putting  interests  in  its  place,  but  by  mental  habits  which  had  no  bias 
at  all.  It  would  also  have  weakened  the  literary  bias,  if  Adams  had 
been  capable  of  finding  other  amusement,  but  the  climate  kept  him 
steady  to  desultory  and  useless  reading,  till  he  had  run  through  libraries 
of  volumes  which  he  forgot  even  to  their  title-pages.  Rather  by  instinct 
than  by  guidance,  he  turned  to  writing,  and  his  professors  or  tutors 
occasionally  gave  his  English  composition  a  hesitating  approval ;  but  in 
that  branch,  as  in  all  the  rest,  even  when  he  made  a  long  struggle 
for  recognition,  he  never  convinced  his  teachers  that  his  abilities,  at  their 
best,  warranted  placing  him  on  the  rank-list,  among  the  first  third  of 
his  class.  Instructors  generally  reach  a  fairly  accurate  guage  of  their 
scholars'  powers.  Henry  Adams  himself  held  the  opinion  that  his 
instructors  were  very  nearly  right,  and  when  he  became  a  professor  in 
his  turn,  and  made  mortifying  mistakes  in  ranking  his  scholars,  he 
still  obstinately  insisted  that  on  the  whole,  he  was  not  far  wrong. 
Student  or  Professor,  he  accepted  the  negative  standard  because  it  was 
the  standard  of  the  school. 

He  never  knew  what  other  students  thought  of  it,  or  what  they 
thought  they  gained  from  it ;  nor  would  their  opinion  have  much 
affected  his.  From  the  first,  he  wanted  to  be  done  with  it,  and  stood 
watching  vaguely  for  a  path  and  a  direction.  The  world  outside  seemed 
large,  but  the  paths  that  led  into  it  were  not  many,  and  lay  mostly 
through  Boston  where  he  did  not  want  to  go.  As  it  happened,  by 
pure  chance,  the  first  door  of  escape  that  seemed  to  offer  a  hope  led 
into  Germany,  and  James  Russell  Lowell  opened  it. 

Lowell,  on  succeeding  Longfellow  as  Professor  of  Belles  Lettres, 
had  duly  gone  to  Germany,  and  had  brought  back  whatever  he  found 
to  bring.  The  literary  world  then  agreed  that  truth  survived  in  Ger 
many  alone,  and  Carlyle,  Matthew  Arnold,  Renan,  Emerson,  with  scores 
of  popular  followers,  taught  the  German  faith.  The  literary  world  had 
revolted  against  the  yoke  of  coming  capitalism, — its  money-lenders,  its 
bank  directors,  and  its  railway  magnates.  Thackeray  and  Dickens  fol 
lowed  Balzac  in  scratching  and  biting  the  unfortunate  middle-class  with 
savage  ill-temper,  much  as  the  middle-class  had  scratched  and  bitten  the 
Church  and  Court  for  a  hundred  years  before.  The  middle-class  had 


HARVARD  COLLEGE  51 

the  power,  and  held  its  coal  and  iron  well  in  hand,  but  the  satirists 
and  idealists  seized  the  press,  and  as  they  were  agreed  that  the  Second 
Empire  was  a  disgrace  to  France  and  a  danger  to  England,  they  turned 
to  Germany  because  at  that  moment  Germany  was  neither  economical 
nor  military,  and  a  hundred  years  behind  western  Europe  in  the  sim 
plicity  of  its  standards.  German  thought,  method,  honesty,  and  even 
taste,  became  the  standards  of  scholarship.  Goethe  was  raised  to  the 
rank  of  Shakespeare — Ka'nt  ranked  as  a  law-giver  above  Plato.  All 
serious  scholars  were  obliged  to  become  German,  for  German  thought 
was  revolutionising  criticism.  Lowell  had  followed  the  rest,  not  very 
enthusiastically,  but  with  sufficient  conviction,  and  invited  his  scholars 
to  join  him.  Adams  was  glad  to  accept  the  invitation,  rather  for  the 
sake  of  cultivating  Lowell  than  Germany,  but  still  in  perfect  good  faith. 
It  was  the  first  serious  attempt  he  had  made  to  direct  his  own  education, 
and  he  was  sure  of  getting  some  education  out  of  it ;  not  perhaps  any 
thing  that  he  expected,  but  at  least  a  path. 

Singularly  circuitous  and  excessively  wasteful  of  energy  the  path 
proved  to  be,  but  the  student  could  never  see  what  other  was  open  to 
him.  He  could  have  done  no  better  had  he  foreseen  every  stage  of  his 
coming  life,  and  he  would  probably  have  done  worse.  The  preliminary 
step  was  pure  gain.  James  Russell  Lowell  had  brought  back  from  Ger 
many  the  only  new  and  valuable  part  of  its  Universities,  the  habit  of 
allowing  students  to  read  with  him  privately  in  his  study.  Adams  asked 
the  privilege,  and  used  it  to  read  a  little,  and  to  talk  a  great  deal,  for  the 
personal  contact  pleased  and  flattered  him,  as  that  of  older  men  ought  to 
flatter  and  please  the  young  even  when  they  altogether  exaggerate  its  value. 
Lowell  was  a  new  element  in  the  boy's  life.  As  practical  a  New  Englander 
as  any,  he  leaned  towards  the  Concord  faith  rather  than  towards  Boston 
where  he  properly  belonged ;  for  Concord  in  the  dark  days  of  1856, 
glowed  with  pure  light.  Adams  approached  it  in  much  the  same  spirit 
as  he  would  have  entered  a  Gothic  Cathedral,  for  he  well  knew  that 
the  priests  regarded  him  only  as  a  worm.  To  the  Concord  Church  all 
Adamses  were  minds  of  dust  and  emptiness,  devoid  of  feeling,  poetry 
or  imagination;  little  higher  than  the  common  scourings  of  State  Street; 
politicians  of  doubtful  honesty ;  natures  of  narrow  scope  ;  and  already,  at 
eighteen  years  old,  Henry  had  begun  to  feel  uncertainty  about  so  many 


52  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

matters  more  important  than  Adamses  that  his  mind  rebelled  against  no 
discipline  merely  personal,  and  he  was  ready  to  admit  his  unworthiness 
if  only  he  might  penetrate  the  shrine.  The  influence  of  Harvard  Col 
lege  was  beginning  to  have  its  effect.  He  was  slipping  away  from  fixed 
principles ;  from  Mount  Vernon  Street ;  from  Quincy ;  from  the  eigh 
teenth  century ;  and  his  first  steps  led  toward  Concord. 

He  never  reached  Concord,  and  to  Concord  Church,  he,  like  the  rest 
of  mankind,  who  accepted  a  material  universe,  remained  always  an  insect, 
or  something  much  lower,  —  a  man.  It  was  surely  no  fault  of  his  that 
the  universe  seemed  to  him  real;  perhaps,  —  as  Mr.  Emerson  justly 
said,  —  it  was  so  ;  in  spite  of  the  long-continued  effort  of  a  life-time,  he  per 
petually  fell  back  into  the  heresy  that  if  anything  universal  was  unreal, 
it  was  himself  and  not  the  appearances;  it  was  the  poet  and  not  the 
banker ;  it  was  his  own  thought,  not  the  thing  that  moved  it.  He  did 
not  lack  the  wish  to  be  transcendental.  Concord  seemed  to  him,  at  one 
time,  more  real  than  Quincy;  yet  in  truth  Russell  Lowell  was  as  little 
transcendental  as  Beacon  Street.  From  him  the  boy  got  no  revolutionary 
thought  whatever, — objective  or  subjective  as  they  used  to  call  it,  —  but 
he  got  good-humored  encouragement  to  do  what  amused  him,  which  con 
sisted  in  passing  two  years  in  Europe  after  finishing  the  four  years  of 
Cambridge. 

The  result  seemed  small  in  proportion  to  the  effort,  but  it  was  the 
only  positive  result  he  could  ever  trace  to  the  influence  of  Harvard 
College,  and  he  had  grave  doubts  whether  Harvard  College  influenced 
even  that.  Negative  results  in  plenty  he  could  trace,  but  he  tended 
towards  negation  on  his  own  account,  as  one  side  of  the  New  England 
mind  had  always  done,  and  even  there  he  could  never  feel  sure  that 
Harvard  College  had  more  than  reflected  a  weakness.  In  his  opinion 
the  education  was  not  serious,  but  in  truth  hardly  any  Boston  student 
took  it  seriously,  and  none  of  them  seemed  sure  that  President  Walker 
himself,  or  President  Felton  after  him,  took  it  more  seriously  than 
the  students.  For  them  all,  the  college  offered  chiefly  advantages 
vulgarly  called  social,  rather  than  mental. 

Unluckily  for  this  particular  boy,  social  advantages  were  his  only  capital 
in  life.  Of  money  he  had  not  much,  of  mind  not  more,  but  he  could  be 
quite  certain  that,  barring  his  own  faults,  his  social  position  would  never  be 


HARVARD  COLLEGE  53 

questioned.  What  he  needed  was  a  career  in  which  social  position  had 
value.  Never  in  his  life  would  he  have  to  explain  who  he  was;  never 
would  he  have  need  of  acquaintance  to  strengthen  his  social  standing ;  but 
he  needed  greatly  some  one  to  show  him  how  to  use  the  acquaintance  he 
cared  to  make.  He  made  no  acquaintance  in  College  which  proved  to 
have  the  smallest  use  in  after  life.  All  his  Boston  friends  he  knew  before, 
or  would  have  known  in  any  case,  and  contact  of  Bostonian  with  Bos- 
tonian  was  the  last  education  these  young  men  needed.  Cordial  and  inti 
mate  as  their  college  relations  were,  they  all  flew  off  in  different  direc 
tions  the  moment  they  took  their  degrees.  Harvard  College  remained  a 
tie,  indeed,  but  a  tie  little  stronger  than  Beacon  Street  and  not  so  strong  as 
State  Street.  Strangers  might  perhaps  gain  something  from  the  College  if 
they  were  hard  pressed  for  social  connections.  A  student  like  H.  H.  Rich 
ardson,  who  came  from  far  away  New  Orleans,  and  had  his  career  before 
him  to  chase  rather  than  to  guide,  might  make  valuable  friendships  at 
college.  Certainly  Adams  made  no  acquaintance  there  that  he  valued  in 
after  life  so  much  as  Richardson,  but  still  more  certainly  the  college 
relation  had  little  to  do  with  the  later  friendship.  Life  is  a  narrow 
valley,  and  the  roads  run  close  together.  Adams  would  have  attached 
himself  to  Richardson  in  any  case,  as  he  attached  himself  to  John 
LaFarge  or  Augustus  St.  Gaudens  or  Clarence  King  or  John  Hay,  none 
of  whom  were  at  Harvard  College.  The  valley  of  life  grew  more  and 
more  narrow  with  years,  and  certain  men  with  common  tastes  were  bound 
to  come  together.  Adams  knew  only  that  he  would  have  felt  himself  on 
a  more  equal  footing  with  them  had  he  been  less  ignorant,  and  had  he 
not  thrown  away  ten  years  of  early  life  in  acquiring  what  he  might  have 
acquired  in  one. 

Socially  or  intellectually,  the  college  was  for  him  negative  and  in 
some  ways  mischievous.  The  most  tolerant  man  of  the  world  could  not 
see  good  in  the  lower  habits  of  the  students,  but  the  vices  were  less  harm 
ful  than  the  virtues.  The  habit  of  drinking, — though  the  mere  recollec 
tion  of  it  made  him  doubt  his  own  veracity,  so  fantastic  it  seemed  in  later 
life, — may  have  done  no  great  or  permanent  harm ;  but  the  habit  of  look 
ing  at  life  as  a  social  relation-^an  affair  of  society — did  no  good.  It 
cultivated  a  weakness  which  needed  no  cultivation.  If  it  had  helped  to 
make  men  of  the  world,  or  give  the  manners  and  instincts  of  any  pro- 


54  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

fession, — such  as  temper,  patience,  courtesy,  or  a  faculty  of  profiting  by 
the  social  defects  of  opponents, — it  would  have  been  education  better 
worth  having  than  mathematics  or  languages;  but  so  far  as  it  helped  to 
make  anything,  it  helped  only  to  make  the  college  standard  permanent 
through  life.  The  Bostonian  educated  at  Harvard  College  remained  a 
collegian,  if  he  stuck  only  to  what  the  college  gave  him.  If  parents  went 
on,  generation  after  generation,  sending  their  children  to  Harvard  College 
for  the  sake  of  its  social  advantages,  they  perpetuated  an  inferior  social  type, 
quite  as  ill-fitted  as  the  Oxford  type  for  success  in  the  next  generation. 

Luckily  the  old  social  standard  of  the  college,  as  President  Walker 
or  James  Russell  Lowell  still  showed  it,  was  admirable,  and  if  it  had 
little  practical  value  or  personal  influence  on  the  mass  of  students,  at 
least  it  preserved  the  tradition  for  those  who  liked  it.  The  Harvard 
graduate  was  neither  American  nor  European,  nor  even  wholly  Yankee ; 
his  admirers  were  few,  and  his  critics  many ;  perhaps  his  worst  weakness 
was  his  self-criticism  and  self-consciousness;  but  his  ambitions,  social  or 
intellectual,  were  not  necessarily  cheap  even  though  they  might  be  nega 
tive.  Afraid  of  serious  risks,  and  still  more  afraid  of  personal  ridicule, 
he  seldom  made  a  great  failure  of  life,  and  nearly  always  led  a  life  more 
or  less  worth  living.  So  Henry  Adams,  well  aware  that  he  could  not 
succeed  as  a  scholar,  and  rinding  his  social  position  beyond  improvement 
or  need  of  effort,  betook  himself  to  the  single  ambition  which  otherwise 
would  scarcely  have  seemed  a  true  outcome  of  the  College,  though  it  was 
the  last  remnant  of  the  old  Unitarian  supremacy.  He  took  to  the  pen. 
He  wrote. 

The  College  Magazine  printed  his  work,  and  the  College  Societies 
listened  to  his  addresses.  Lavish  of  praise  the  readers  were  not ;  the 
audiences,  too,  listened  in  silence;  but  this  was  all  the  encouragement  any 
Harvard  collegian  had  a  reasonable  hope  to  receive;  grave  silence  was  a 
form  of  patience  that  meant  possible  future  acceptance ;  and  Henry  Adams 
went  on  writing.  No  one  cared  enough  to  criticise,  except  himself  who 
soon  begun  to  suffer  from  reaching  his  own  limits.  He  found  that  he 
could  not  be  this  —  or  that — or  the  other;  always  precisely  the  things  he 
wanted  to  be.  He  had  not  wit  or  scope  or  force.  Judges  always  ranked 
him  beneath  a  rival,  if  he  had  any ;  and  he  believed  the  judges  were 
right.  His  work  seemed  to  him  thin,  common-place,  feeble.  At  times  he 


HARVARD   COLLEGE  55 

felt  his  own  weakness  so  fatally  that  he  could  not  go  on ;  when  he  had 
nothing  to  say,  he  could  not  say  it,  and  he  found  that  he  had  very  little  to 
say  at  best.  Much  that  he  then  wrote  must  be  still  in  existence  in  print 
or  manuscript,  though  he  never  cared  to  see  it  again,  for  he  felt  no 
doubt  that  it  was  in  reality  just  what  he  thought  it.  At  best  it  showed 
only  a  feeling  for  form ;  an  instinct  of  exclusion.  Nothing  shocked, — 
not  even  its  weakness. 

Inevitably  an  effort  leads  to  an  ambition,  —  creates  it,  —  and  at  that 
time  the  ambition  of  the  literary  student,  which  almost  took  place  of  the 
regular  prizes  of  scholarship,  was  that  of  being  chosen  as  the  represent 
ative  of  his,  class  —  the  Class  Orator,  —  at  the  close  of  their  course.  This 
was  political  as  well  as  literary  success,  and  precisely  the  sort  of  eigh 
teenth-century  combination  that  fascinated  an  eighteenth-century  boy. 
The  idea  lurked  in  his  mind,  at  first  as  a  dream,  in  no  way  serious  or 
even  possible,  for  he  stood  outside  the  number  of  what  were  known  as 
popular  men.  Year  by  year,  his  position  seemed  to  improve,  or  perhaps 
his  rivals  disappeared,  until  at  last,  to  his  own  great  astonishment,  he 
found  himself  a  candidate.  The  habits  of  the  College  permitted  no  active 
candidacy ;  he  and  his  rivals  had  not  a  word  to  say  for  or  against 
themselves,  and  he  was  never  even  consulted  on  the  subject;  he 
was  not  present  at  any  of  the  proceedings,  and  how  it  happened  he 
never  could  quite  divine,  but  it  did  happen,  that  one  evening  on  return 
ing  from  Boston  he  received  notice  of  his  election,  after  a  very  close  con 
test,  as  Class  Orator  over  the  head  of  the  first  scholar,  who  was  un 
doubtedly  a  better  orator  and  a  more  popular  man.  In  politics  the  success 
of  the  poorer  candidate  is  common  enough,  and  Henry  Adams  was  a 
fairly  trained  politician,  but  he  never  understood  how  he  managed  to  de 
feat  not  only  a  more  capable  but  a  more  popular  rival. 

To  him  the  election  seemed  a  miracle.  This  was  no  mock-modesty ; 
his  head  was  as  clear  as  ever  it  was  in  an  indifferent  canvas,  and  he 
knew  his  rivals  and  their  following  as  well  as  he  knew  himself.  What 
he  did  not  know,  even  after  four  years  of  education,  was  Harvard  Col 
lege.  What  he  could  never  measure  was  the  bewildering  impersonality 
of  the  men,  who,  at  twenty  years  old,  seemed  to  set  no  value  either  on 
official  or  personal  standards.  Here  were  nearly  a  hundred  young  men 
who  had  lived  together  intimately  during  four  of  the  most  impressionable 


56  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

years  of  life,  and  who,  not  only  once  but  again  and  again,  in  different 
ways,  deliberately,  seriously,  dispassionately,  chose  as  their  representatives 
precisely  those  of  their  companions  who  seemed  least  to  represent  them. 
As  far  as  these  Orators  and  Marshals  had  any  position  at  all  in  a  col 
legiate  sense,  it  was  that  of  indifference  to  the  college.  Henry  Adams 
never  professed  the  smallest  faith  in  Universities  of  any  kind,  either  as 
boy  or  man,  nor  had  he  the  faintest  admiration  for  the  University  grad 
uate,  either  in  Europe  or  in  America ;  as  a  collegian  he  was  only  known 
apart  from  his  fellows  by  his  habit  of  standing  outside  the  college ;  and 
yet  the  singular  fact  remained  that  this  common-place  body  of  young  men 
chose  him  repeatedly  to  express  his  and  their  common-places.  Secretly, 
of  course,  the  successful  candidate  flattered  himself —  and  them  —  with  the 
hope  that  they  might  perhaps  not  be  so  common-place  as  they  thought 
themselves  ;  but  this  was  only  another  proof  that  all  were  identical.  They 
saw  in  him  a  representative,  —  the  kind  of  representative  they  wanted, — 
and  he  saw  in  them  the  most  formidable  array  of  judges  he  could  ever 
meet,  like  so  many  mirrors  of  himself,  an  infinite  reflection  of  his  own 
shortcomings. 

All  the  same,  the  choice  was  flattering ;  so  flattering  that  it  actually 
shocked  his  vanity ;  and  would  have  shocked  it  more,  if  possible,  had 
he  known  that  it  was  to  be  the  only  flattery  of  the  sort  he  was  ever  to 
receive.  The  function  of  Class  Day  was,  in  the  eyes  of  nine-tenths  of  the 
students,  altogether  the  most  important  of  the  college,  and  the  figure  of 
the  Orator  was  the  most  conspicuous  in  the  function.  Unlike  the  Orators 
at  regular  Commencements,  the  Class  Day  Orator  stood  alone,  or  had  only 
the  Poet  for  rival.  Crowded  into  the  large  church,  the  students,  their 
families,  friends,  aunts,  uncles  and  chaperones,  attended  all  the  girls  of 
sixteen  or  twenty  who  wanted  to  show  their  summer  dresses  or  fresh 
complexions,  and  there,  for  an  hour  or  two,  in  a  heat  that  might  have 
melted  bronze,  they  listened  to  an  Orator  and  a  Poet,  in  clergyman's  gowns, 
reciting  such  platitudes  as  their  own  experience  and  their  mild  censors 
permitted  them  to  utter.  What  Henry  Adams  said  in  his  Class  Oration 
of  1858  he  soon  forgot  to  the  last  word,  nor  had  it  the  least  value  for 
education ;  but  he  naturally  remembered  what  was  said  of  it.  He  remem 
bered  especially  one  of  his  eminent  uncles  or  relations  remarking  that, 
as  the  work  of  so  young  a  man,  the  oration  was  singularly  wanting  in 


HARVARD  COLLEGE  57 

enthusiasm.  The  young  man  —  always  in  search  of  education  —  asked  him 
self  whether,  setting  rhetoric  aside,  this  absence  of  enthusiasm  was  a 
defect  or  a  merit,  since,  in  either  case,  it  was  all  that  Harvard  College 
taught,  and  all  that  the  hundred  young  men,  whom  he  was  trying  to 
represent,  expressed.  Another  comment  threw  more  light  on  the  effect  of 
the  college  education.  One  of  the  elderly  gentlemen  noticed  the  orator's 
"  perfect  self-possession."  Self-possession  indeed  !  If  Harvard  College  gave 
nothing  else,  it  gave  calm.  For  four  years  each  student  had  heen  obliged 
to  figure  daily  before  dozens  of  young  men  who  knew  each  other  to  the 
last  fibre.  One  had  done  little  but  read  papers  to  Societies,  or  act  comedy 
in  the  Hasty  Pudding,  not  to  speak  of  all  sorts  of  regular  exercises,  and  no 
audience  in  future  life  would  ever  be  so  intimately  and  terribly  intelligent 
as  these.  Three-fourths  of  the  graduates  would  rather  have  addressed 
the  Council  of  Trent  or  the  British  Parliament  than  have  acted  Sir 
Anthony  Absolute  or  Dr.  Ollapod  before  a  gala  audience  of  the  Hasty 
Pudding.  Self-possession  was  the  strongest  part  of  Harvard  College,  which 
certainly  taught  men  to  stand  alone,  so  that  nothing  seemed  stranger  to  its 
graduates  than  the  paroxysms  of  terror  before  the  public  which  often  over 
came  the  graduates  of  European  Universities.  Whether  this  was,  or  was 
not,  education,  Henry  Adams  never  knew.  He  was  ready  to  stand  up 
before  any  audience  in  America  or  Europe,  with  nerves  rather  steadier  for 
the  excitement,  but  whether  he  should  ever  have  anything  to  say,  remained 
to  be  proved.  As  yet  he  knew  nothing.  Education  had  not  begun. 


CHAPTEK    V 

1858-1859 

A  fourth  child  has  the  strength  of  his  weakness.  Being  of  no  great 
value,  he  may  throw  himself  away  if  he  likes,  and  never  be  missed. 
Charles  Francis  Adams,  the  father,  felt  no  love  for  Europe,  which,  as  he 
and  all  the  world  agreed,  unfitted  Americans  for  America.  A  captious 
critic  might  have  replied  that  all  the  success  he  or  his  father  or  his 
grandfather  ever  achieved  was  chiefly  due  to  the  field  that  Europe  gave 
them,  and  it  was  more  than  likely  that  without  the  help  of  Europe  they 
would  have  all  remained  local  politicians  or  lawyers,  like  their  neighbors, 
to  the  end.  Strictly  followed,  the  rule  would  have  obliged  them  never  to 
quit  Quincy ;  and,  in  fact,  so  much  more  timid  are  parents  for  their 
children  than  for  themselves,  that  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Adams  would  have  been 
content  to  see  their  children  remain  forever  in  Mt.  Vernon  Street,  un- 
exposed  to  the  temptations  of  Europe,  could  they  have  relied  on  the  moral 
influences  of  Boston  itself.  Although  the  parents  little  knew  what  took 
place  under  their  eyes,  even  the  mothers  saw  enough  to  make  them 
uneasy.  Perhaps  their  dread  of  vice,  haunting  past  and  present,  worried 
them  less  than  their  dread  of  daughters-in-law  or  sons-in-law  who  might 
not  fit  into  the  somewhat  narrow  quarters  of  home.  On  all  sides  were 
risks.  Every  year  some  young  person  alarmed  the  parental  heart  even 
in  Boston,  and  although  the  temptations  of  Europe  were  irresistible,  removal 
from  the  temptations  of  Boston  might  be  imperative.  The  boy  Henry 
wanted  to  go  to  Europe ;  he  seemed  well  behaved,  when  anyone  was  looking 
at  him :  he  observed  conventions,  when  he  could  not  escape  them ;  he  was 
never  quarrelsome,  towards  a  superior  ;  his  morals  were  apparently  good,  and 
58 


BERLIN  59 

his  moral  principles,  if  he  had  any,  were  not  known  to  be  bad.  Above  all, 
he  was  timid  and  showed  a  certain  sense  of  self-respect,  when  in  public 
view.  What  he  was  at  heart,  no  one  could  say ;  least  of  all  himself;  but 
he  was  probably  human,  and  no  worse  than  some  others.  Therefore,  when  he 
presented  to  an  exceedingly  indulgent  father  and  mother  his  request  to 
begin  at  a  German  University  the  study  of  the  Civil  Law,  —  although 
neither  he  nor  they  knew  what  the  Civil  Law  was,  or  any  reason  for  his 
studying  it,  —  the  parents  dutifully  consented,  and  walked  with  him 
down  to  the  railway-station  at  Quincy  to  bid  him  good-bye,  with  a  smile 
which  he  almost  thought  a  tear. 

Whether  the  boy  deserved  such  indulgence,  or  was  worth  it,  he 
knew  no  more  than  they,  or  than  a  Professor  at  Harvard  College ;  but 
whether  worthy  or  not,  he  began  his  third  or  fourth  attempt  at  education 
in  November,  1858,  by  sailing  on  the  steamer  Persia,  the  pride  of  Cap 
tain  Judkins  and  the  Cunard  Line ;  the  newest,  largest  and  fastest  steam 
ship  afloat.  He  was  not  alone.  Several  of  his  college  companions  sailed 
with  him,  and  the  world  looked  cheerful  enough  until  on  the  third  day, 
the  world  —  as  far  as  concerned  the  young  man  —  ran  into  a  heavy  storm. 
He  learned  then  a  lesson  that  stood  by  him  better  than  any  University 
teaching  ever  did, — the  meaning  of  a  November  gale  on  the  mid-Atlantic, 
—  which,  for  mere  physical  misery,  passed  endurance.  The  subject  offered 
him  material  for  none  but  serious  treatment;  he  could  never  see  the 
humor  of  sea-sickness;  but  it  united  itself  with  a  great  variety  of  other 
impressions  which  made  the  first  month  of  travel  altogether  the  rapidest 
school  of  education  he  had  yet  found.  The  stride  in  knowledge  seemed 
gigantic.  One  began  at  last  to  see  that  a  great  many  impressions  were 
needed  to  make  a  very  little  education,  but  how  many  could  be  crowded 
into  one  day  without  making  any  education  at  all,  became  the  pons 
asinorum  of  tourist  mathematics.  How  many  would  turn  out  to  be  wrong, 
or  whether  any  would  turn  out  right,  was  ultimate  wisdom. 

The  ocean,  the  Persia,  Captain  Judkins,  and  Mr.  G.  P.  R.  James,  the 
most  distinguished  passenger,  vanished  one  Sunday  morning  in  a  furious 
gale  in  the  Mersey,  to  make  place  for  the  drearier  picture  of  a  Liver 
pool  street  as  seen  from  the  Adelphi  coffee  room  in  November  murk, 
followed  instantly  by  the  passionate  delights  of  Chester  and  the 
romance  of  red-sandstone  architecture.  Millions  of  Americans  have  felt 


60  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

this  succession  of  emotions.  Possibly  very  young  and  ingenuous  tourists 
feel  them  still,  but  in  days  before  tourists,  when  the  romance  was  a  reality, 
not  a  picture,  they  were  overwhelming.  When  the  boys  went  out  to 
Eaton  Hall,  they  were  awed,  as  Thackeray  or  Dickens  would  have  felt 
in  the  presence  of  a  Duke.  The  very  name  of  Grosvenor  struck  a  note 
of  grandeur.  The  long  suite  of  lofty,  gilded  rooms  with  their  gilded 
furniture ;  the  portraits ;  the  terraces ;  the  gardens ;  the  landscape ;  the 
sense  of  superiority  in  the  England  of  the  fifties,  actually  set  the  rich  noble 
man  apart,  above  Americans  and  shop-keepers.  Aristocracy  was  real.  So 
was  the  England  of  Dickens.  Oliver  Twist  and  Little  Nell  lurked  in 
every  church-yard  shadow,  not  as  shadow  but  alive.  Even  Charles  the 
First  was  not  very  shadowy,  standing  on  the  tower  to  see  his  army 
defeated.  Nothing  thereabouts  had  very  much  changed  since  he  lost  his 
battle  and  his  head.  An  eighteenth-century  American  boy  fresh  from 
Boston  naturally  took  it  all  for  education,  and  was  amused  at  this  sort 
of  lesson.  At  least  he  thought  he  felt  it. 

Then  came  the  journey  up  to  London  through  Birmingham  and  the 
Black  District,  another  lesson,  which  needed  much  more  to  be  rightly 
felt.  The  plunge  into  darkness  lurid  with  flames ;  the  sense  of  unknown 
horror  in  this  weird  gloom  which  then  existed  nowhere  else,  and  never 
had  existed  before,  except  in  volcanic  craters ;  the  violent  contrast  be 
tween  this  dense,  smoky,  impenetrable  darkness,  and  the  soft  green  charm 
that  one  glided  into,  as  one  emerged : — the  revelation  of  an  unknown 
society  of  the  pit, — made  a  boy  uncomfortable,  though  he  had  no  idea  that 
Karl  Marx  was  standing  there  waiting  for  him,  and  that  sooner  or  later 
the  process  of  education  would  have  to  deal  with  Karl  Marx  much  more 
than  with  Professor  Bowen  of  Harvard  College  or  his  Satanic  free  trade 
majesty  John  Stuart  Mill.  The  Black  District  was  a  practical  education, 
but  it  was  infinitely  far  in  the  distance.  The  boy  ran  away  from  it,  as 
he  ran  away  from  everything  he  disliked. 

Had  he  known  enough  to  know  where  to  begin  he  would  have 
seen  something  to  study,  more  vital  than  the  Civil  Law,  in  the  long, 
muddy,  dirty,  sordid,  gas-lit  dreariness  of  Oxford  Street  as  his  dingy 
four-wheeler  dragged  its  weary  way  to  Charing  Cross.  He  did  notice  one 
peculiarity  about  it  worth  remembering.  London  was  still  London.  A 
certain  style  dignified  its  grime ;  heavy,  clumsy,  arrogant,  purse-proud, 


BERLIN  61 

but  not  cheap ;  insular  but  large ;  barely  tolerant  of  an  outside  world,  and 
absolutely  self-confident.  The  boys  in  the  streets  made  such  free  comments 
on  the  American  clothes  and  figures,  that  the  travellers  hurried  to  put  on 
tall  hats  and  long  overcoats  to  escape  criticism.  No  stranger  had  rights 
even  in  the  Strand.  The  eighteenth  century  held  its  own.  History 
muttered  down  Fleet  Street,  like  Dr.  Johnson,  in  Adams's  ear ;  Vanity 
Fair  was  alive  on  Piccadilly  in  yellow  chariots  with  coachmen  in  wigs, 
on  hammer-cloths ;  footmen  with  canes,  on  the  foot-board,  and  a  shriveled 
old  woman  inside ;  half  the  great  houses,  black  with  London  smoke,  bore 
large  funereal  hatchments ;  everyone  seemed  insolent  and  the  most  insolent 
structure  in  the  world  was  the  Royal  Exchange  and  the  Bank  of  England. 
In  November,  1858,  London  was  still  vast,  but  it  was  the  London  of  the 
eighteenth  century  that  an  American  felt  and  hated. 

Education  went  backward.  Adams,  still  a  boy,  could  not  guess  how 
intensely  intimate  this  London  grime  was  to  become  to  him  as  a  man,  but 
he  could  still  less  conceive  himself  returning  to  it  fifty  years  afterwards, 
noting  at  each  return  how  the  great  city  grew  smaller  as  it  doubled  in  size ; 
cheaper  as  it  quadrupled  its  wealth ;  less  imperial  as  its  empire  widened ; 
less  dignified  as  it  tried  to  be  civil.  He  liked  it  best  when  he  hated  it. 
Education  began  at  the  end,  or  perhaps  would  end  at  the  beginning. 
Thus  far  it  had  remained  in  the  eighteenth  century,  and  the  next  step 
took  it  back  to  the  sixteenth.  He  crossed  to  Antwerp.  As  the  "  Baron 
Osy  "  steamed  up  the  Scheldt  in  the  morning  mists,  a  travelling-band  on 
deck  began  to  play,  and  groups  of  peasants,  working  along  the  fields, 
dropped  their  tools  to  join  in  dancing.  Ostade  and  Teniers  were  as  much 
alive  as  they  ever  were,  and  even  the  Duke  of  Alva  was  still  at  home. 
The  thirteenth-century  Cathedral  towered  above  a  sixteenth-century  mass  of 
tiled  roofs,  ending  abruptly  in  walls  and  a  landscape  that  had  not  changed. 
The  taste  of  the  town  was  thick,  rich,  ripe,  like  a  sweet  wine ;  it  was 
mediaeval,  so  that  Rubens  seemed  modern ;  it  was  one  of  the  strongest  and 
fullest  flavors  that  ever  touched  the  young  man's  palate ;  but  he  might  as 
well  have  drunk  out  his  excitement  in  old  Malmsey,  for  all  the  education 
he  got  from  it.  Even  in  art,  one  can  hardly  begin  with  Antwerp  Cathe 
dral  and  the  Descent  from  the  Cross.  He  merely  got  drunk  on  his 
emotions,  and  had  then  to  get  sober  as  he  best  could.  He  was  terribly 
sober  when  he  saw  Antwerp  half  a  century  afterwards.  One  lesson  he  did 


62  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

learn  without  suspecting  that  he  must  immediately  lose  it.  He  felt  his 
middle  ages  and  the  sixteenth  century  alive.  He  was  young  enough,  and 
the  towns  were  dirty  enough,  —  unimproved,  unrestored,  untouristed,  —  to 
retain  the  sense  of  reality.  As  a  taste  or  a  smell,  it  was  education,  espe 
cially  because  it  lasted  barely  ten  years  longer ;  but  it  was  education  only 
sensual.  He  never  dreamed  of  trying  to  educate  himself  to  the  Descent 
from  the  Cross.  He  was  only  too  happy  to  feel  himself  kneeling  at  the 
foot  of  the  Cross ;  he  learned  only  to  loath  the  sordid  necessity  of  getting 
up  again,  and  going  about  his  stupid  business. 

This  was  one  of  the  foreseen  dangers  of  Europe,  but  it  vanished  rapidly 
enough  to  reassure  the  most  anxious  of  parents.  Dropped  into  Berlin 
one  morning  without  guide  or  direction,  the  young  man  in  search  of 
education  floundered  in  a  mere  mess  of  misunderstandings.  He  could  never 
recall  what  he  expected  to  find,  but  whatever  he  expected,  it  had  no 
relation  with  what  it  turned  out  to  be.  A  student  at  twenty  takes  easily 
to  anything,  even  to  Berlin,  and  he  would  have  accepted  the  thirteenth 
century  pure  and  simple  since  his  guides  assured  him  that  this  was  his 
right  path  ;  but  a  week's  experience  left  him  dazed  and  dulL  Faith  held 
out,  but  the  paths  grew  dim.  Berlin  astonished  him,  but  he  had  no  lack 
of  friends  to  show  him  all  the  amusement  it  had  to  offer.  Within  a  day 
or  two  he  was  running  about  with  the  rest  to  beer-cellars  and  music-halls 
and  dance-rooms,  smoking  bad  tobacco,  drinking  poor  beer,  and  eating 
sauerkraut  and  sausages  as  though  he  knew  no  better.  This  was  easy. 
One  can  always  descend  the  social  ladder.  The  trouble  came  when  he  asked 
for  the  education  he  was  promised.  His  friends  took  him  to  be  registered 
as  a  student  of  the  University ;  they  selected  his  professors  and  courses ; 
they  showed  him  where  to  buy  the  Institutes  of  Caius  and  several  German 
works  on  the  Civil  Law  in  numerous  volumes ;  and  they  led  him  to  his 
first  lecture. 

His  first  lecture  was  his  last.  The  young  man  was  not  very  quick, 
and  he  had  almost  religious  respect  for  his  guides  and  advisers ;  but  he 
needed  no  more  than  one  hour  to  satisfy  him  that  he  had  made  another 
failure  in  education,  and  this  time  a  fatal  one.  That  the  language  would 
require  at  least  three  months'  hard  work  before  he  could  touch  the  Law 
was  an  annoying  discovery ;  but  the  shock  that  upset  him  was  the  dis 
covery  of  the  University  itself.  He  had  thought  Harvard  College  a  torpid 


BERLIN  63 

school,  but  it  was  instinct  with  life  compared  with  all  that  he  could  see 
of  the  University  of  Berlin.  The  German  students  were  strange  animals, 
but  their  Professors  were  beyond  pay.  The  mental  attitude  of  the 
University  was  not  of  an  American  world.  What  sort  of  instruction 
prevailed  in  other  branches,  or  in  science,  Adams  had  no  occasion  to  ask, 
but  in  the  Civil  Law  he  found  only  the  lecture-system  in  its  deadliest 
form  as  it  flourished  in  the  thirteenth  century.  The  Professor  mumbled 
his  comments ;  the  students  made,  or  seemed  to  make,  notes ;  they  could 
have  learned  from  books  or  discussion  in  a  day  more  than  they  could  learn 
from  him  in  a  month,  but  they  must  pay  his  fees,  follow  his  course,  and  be 
his  scholars,  if  they  wanted  a  Degree.  To  an  American  the  result  was 
worthless.  He  could  make  no  use  of  the  Civil  Law  without  some  previous 
notion  of  the  Common  Law ;  but  the  student  who  knew  enough  of  the 
Common  Law  to  understand  what  he  wanted,  had  only  to  read  the  Pan 
dects  or  the  commentators  at  his  ease  in  America,  and  be  his  own  Pro 
fessor.  Neither  the  method  nor  the  matter  nor  the  manner  could  profit 
an  American  education. 

This  discovery  seemed  to  shock  none  of  the  students.  They  went  to 
the  lectures,  made  notes,  and  read  text-books,  but  never  pretended  to  take 
their  Professor  seriously.  They  were  much  more  serious  in  reading  Heine. 
They  knew  no  more  than  Heine  what  good  they  were  getting,  beyond  the 
Berlin  accent,  —  which  was  bad  ;  and  the  beer,  —  which  was  not  to  compare 
with  Munich ;  and  the  dancing  —  which  was  better  at  Vienna.  They 
enjoyed  the  beer  and  music,  but  they  refused  to  be  responsible  for  the 
education.  Anyway,  as  they  defended  themselves,  they  were  learning  the 
language. 

So  the  young  man  fell  back  on  the  language,  and  being  slow  at 
languages,  he  found  himself  falling  behind  all  his  friends,  which  depressed 
his  spirits  the  more  because  the  gloom  of  a  Berlin  winter  and  of  Berlin 
architecture  seemed  to  him  a  particular  sort  of  gloom  never  attained  else 
where.  One  day  on  the  Linden  he  caught  sight  of  Charles  Sumner  in  a 
cab,  and  ran  after  him.  Sumner  was  then  recovering  from  the  blows  of 
the  South  Carolinian  cane  or  club,  and  he  was  pleased  to  find 
a  young  worshipper  in  the  remote  Prussian  wilderness.  They  dined 
together  and  went  to  hear  William  Tell  at  the  Opera.  Sumner  tried  to 
encourage  his  friend  about  his  difficulties  of  language :  —  "I  came  to 
Berlin,"  or  Rome,  or  whatever  place  it  was,  as  he  said  with  his  grand  air 


64  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

of  mastery ;  —  "I  came  to  Berlin,  unable  to  say  a  word  in  the  language ; 
and  three  months  later  when  I  went  away,  I  talked  it  to  my  cabman." 
Adams  felt  himself  quite  unable  to  attain  in  so  short  a  time  such  social 
advantages,  and  one  day  complained  of  his  trials  to  Mr.  Robert  Abthorp 
of  Boston  who  was  passing  the  winter  in  Berlin  for  the  sake  of  its 
music.  Mr.  Abthorp  told  of  his  own  similar  struggle,  and  how  he  had 
entered  a  public  school  and  sat  for  months  with  ten-year-old  boys,  reciting 
their  lessons  and  catching  their  phrases.  The  idea  suited  Adams's  des 
perate  frame  of  mind.  At  least  it  ridded  him  of  the  University  and  the 
Civil  Law  and  American  associations  in  beer-cellars.  Mr.  Abthorp  took 
the  trouble  to  negotiate  with  the  head-master  of  the  Friedrichs-Wilhelm- 
Werdersches  Gymnasium  for  permission  to  Henry  Adams  to  attend  the 
school  as  a  member  of  the  Ober-tertia,  a  class  of  boys  twelve  or  thirteen 
years  old,  and  there  Adams  went  for  three  months  as  though  he  had  not 
always  avoided  high-schools  with  singular  antipathy.  He  never  did 
anything  else  so  foolish,  but  he  was  given  a  bit  of  education  which  served 
him  some  purpose  in  life. 

It  was  not  merely  the  language,  though  three  months  passed  in  such 
fashion  would  teach  a  poodle  enough  to  talk  with  a  cabman,  and  this  was 
all  that  foreign  students  could  expect  to  do,  for  they  never  by  any  chance 
would  come  in  contact  with  German  society,  if  German  society  existed, 
about  which  they  knew  nothing.  Adams  never  learned  to  talk  German 
well,  but  the  same  might  be  said  of  his  English,  if  he  could  believe 
Englishmen.  He  learned  not  to  annoy  himself  on  this  account.  His 
difficulties  with  the  language  gradually  ceased.  He  thought  himself  quite 
Germanised  in  1859.  He  even  deluded  himself  with  the  idea  that  he 
read  it  as  though  it  were  English,  which  proved  that  he  knew  little  about 
it;  but  whatever  success  he  had  in  his  own  experiment,  interested  him 
less  than  his  contact  with  German  education. 

He  had  revolted  at  the  American  school  and  university ;  he  had 
instantly  rejected  the  German  University ;  and  as  his  last  experience  of 
education  he  tried  the  German  high-school .  The  experiment  was  hasardous. 
In  1858  Berlin  was  a  poor,  keen-witted,  provincial  town,  simple,  dirty, 
uncivilised,  and  in  most  respects  disgusting.  Life  was  primitive  beyond  what 
an  American  boy  could  have  imagined.  Overridden  by  military  methods 
and  bureaucratic  pettiness,  Prussia  was  only  beginning  to  free  her  hands 


BERLIN  65 

from  internal  bonds.  Apart  from  discipline,  activity  scarcely  existed.  The 
future  Kaiser  Wilhelm  L,  regent  for  his  insane  brother  King  Friedrich 
Wilhelm  IV.,  seemed  to  pass  his  time  looking  out  at  the  passers-by  from 
the  window  of  his  modest  palace  on  the  Linden.  German  manners,  even 
at  Court,  were  sometimes  brutal,  and  German  thoroughness  at  school  was 
apt  to  be  routine.  Bismarck  himself  was  then  struggling  to  begin  a  career 
against  the  inertia  of  the  German  system.  The  condition  of  Germany 
was  a  scandal  and  nuisance  to  every  earnest  German,  all  whose  energies 
were  turned  to  reforming  it  from  top  to  bottom ;  and  Adams  walked  into 
a  great  public  school  to  get  educated,  at  precisely  the  time  when  the  Ger 
mans  wanted  most  to  get  rid  of  the  education  they  were  forced  to  follow. 
As  an  episode  in  the  search  for  education,  this  adventure  smacked  of  Heine. 

The  school-system  has  doubtless  changed,  and  at  all  events  the  school 
masters  are  probably  long  ago  dead ;  the  story  has  no  longer  a  practical 
value,  and  had  very  little  even  at  the  time ;  one  could  at  least  say  in  defence 
of  the  German  school  that  it  was  neither  very  brutal  nor  very  immoral. 
The  head-master  was  excellent  in  his  Prussian  way,  and  the  other  in 
structors  were  not  worse  than  in  other  schools ;  it  was  their  system  that 
struck  the  systemless  American  with  horror.  The  arbitrary  training  given 
to  the  memory  was  stupefying ;  the  strain  that  the  memory  endured  was  a 
form  of  torture ;  and  the  feats  that  the  boys  performed,  without  complaint, 
were  pitiable.  No  other  faculty  than  the  memory  seemed  to  be  recognised. 
Least  of  all  was  any  use  made  of  reason,  either  analytic,  synthetic  or 
dogmatic.  The  German  government  did  not  encourage  reasoning. 

All  State-education  is  a  sort  of  dynamo  machine  for  polarising  the  popu 
lar  mind  ;  for  turning  and  holding  its  lines  of  force  in  the  direction  supposed 
to  be  most  effective  for  State-purposes.  The  German  machine  was  terribly 
efficient.  Its  effect  on  the  children  was  pathetic.  The  Friedrichs-Wilhelm- 
Werdersches  Gymnasium  was  an  old  building  in  the  heart  of  Berlin  which 
served  the  educational  needs  of  the  small  tradesmen  or  bourgeoisie  of  the 
neighborhood  ; — the  children  were  Berliner-kinder  if  ever  there  were  such, 
and  of  a  class  suspected  of  sympathy  and  concern  in  the  troubles  of  1848. 
None  was  noble  or  connected  with  good  society.  Personally  they  were 
rather  sympathetic  than  not,  but  as  the  objects  of  education  they  were  proofs 
of  nearly  all  the  evils  that  a  bad  system  could  give.  Apparently  Adams, 
in  his  rigidly  illogical  pursuit,  had  at  last  reached  his  ideal  of  a  viciously 
5 


66  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

logical  education.  The  boys'  physique  showed  it  first,  but  their  physique 
could  not  be  wholly  charged  to  the  school.  German  food  was  bad  at  best, 
and  a  diet  of  sauerkraut,  sausage  and  beer  could  never  be  good  ;  but  it  was 
not  the  food  alone  that  made  their  faces  white  and  their  flesh  flabby.  They 
never  breathed  fresh  air ;  they  had  never  heard  of  a  playground ;  in  all 
Berlin  not  a  cubic  inch  of  oxygen  was  admitted  in  winter  into  an  inhabited 
building ;  in  the  school  every  room  was  tightly  closed  and  had  no  ventila 
tion  ;  the  air  was  foul  beyond  all  decency  ;  but  when  the  American  opened 
a  window  in  the  five  minutes  between  hours,  he  violated  the  rules  and  was 
invariably  rebuked.  As  long  as  cold  weather  lasted,  the  windows  were  shut. 
If  the  boys  had  a  holiday,  they  were  apt  to  be  taken  on  long  tramps  in  the 
Thiergarten  or  elsewhere,  always  ending  in  over-fatigue,  tobacco-smoke, 
sausages  and  beer.  With  this,  they  were  required  to  prepare  daily 
lessons  that  would  have  quickly  broken  down  strong  men  of  a  healthy  habit, 
and  which  they  could  learn  only  because  their  minds  were  morbid.  The 
German  University  had  seemed  a  failure,  but  the  German  high-school  was 
something  very  near  an  indictable  nuisance. 

Before  the  month  of  April  arrived,  the  experiment  of  German  educa 
tion  had  reached  this  point.  Nothing  was  left  of  it  except  the  ghost 
of  the  Civil  Law  shut  up  in  the  darkest  of  closets,  never  to  gibber 
again  before  anyone  who  could  repeat  the  story.  The  derisive  Jew 
laughter  of  Heine  ran  through  the  University  and  everything  else  in  Berlin. 
Of  course,  when  one  is  twenty  years  old,  life  is  bound  to  be  full,  if  only 
of  Berlin  beer,  although  German  student  life  was  on  the  whole  the  thinnest 
of  beer,  as  an  American  looked  on  it,  but  though  nothing  except  small 
fragments  remained  of  the  education  that  had  been  so  promising,  —  or 
promised,  —  this  is  only  what  most  often  happens  in  life,  when  by-products 
turn  out  to  be  more  valuable  than  staples.  The  German  University  and 
German  Law  were  failures ;  German  society,  in  an  American  sense,  did 
not  exist,  or  if  it  existed,  never  showed  itself  to  an  American  ;  the  German 
theatre,  on  the  other  hand,  was  excellent,  and  German  Opera,  with  the 
Ballet,  was  almost  worth  a  journey  to  Berlin ;  but  the  curious  and  per 
plexing  result  of  the  total  failure  of  German  education  was  that  the 
student's  only  clear  gain, —  his  single  step  to  a  higher  life, —  came  from 
time  wasted ;  studies  neglected  ;  vices  indulged  ;  education  reversed ; — it 
came  from  the  despised  beer-garden  and  music-hall ;  and  it  was  accidental, 
unintended,  unforeseen. 


BERLIN  67 

When  his  companions  insisted  on  passing  two  or  three  afternoons 
in  the  week  at  music  halls,  drinking  beer,  smoking  German  tobacco,  and 
looking  at  fat  German  women  knitting,  while  an  orchestra  played  dull 
music,  Adams  went  with  them  for  the  sake  of  the  company,  but  with  no 
pretence  of  enjoyment ;  and  when  Mr.  Abthorp  gently  protested  that  he 
exaggerated  his  indifference,  for  of  course  he  enjoyed  Beethoven,  Adams 
replied  simply  that  he  loathed  Beethoven  ;  and  felt  a  slight  surprise  when 
Mr.  Abthorp  and  the  others  laughed  as  though  they  thought  it  humor. 
He  saw  no  humor  in  it.  He  supposed  that,  except  musicians,  every 
one  thought  Beethoven  a  bore,  as  everyone  except  mathematicians  thought 
mathematics  a  bore.  Sitting  thus  at  his  beer-table,  mentally  impassive,  he 
was  one  day  surprised  to  notice  that  his  mind  followed  the  movement  of 
a  Sinfony.  He  could  not  have  been  more  astonished  had  he  suddenly 
read  a  new  language.  Among  the  marvels  of  education,  this  was  the  most 
marvelous.  A  prison-wall  that  barred  his  senses  on  one  great  side  of 
life,  suddenly  fell,  of  its  own  accord,  without  so  much  as  his  knowing 
when  it  happened.  Amid  the  fumes  of  coarse  tobacco  and  poor  beer,  sur 
rounded  by  the  commonest  of  German  Haus-fraus,  a  new  sense  burst  out 
like  a  flower  in  his  life,  so  superior  to  the  old  senses,  so  bewildering,  so 
astonished  at  its  own  existence,  that  he  could  not  credit  it,  and  watched  it  as 
something  apart,  accidental  and  not  to  be  trusted.  He  slowly  came  to 
admit  that  Beethoven  had  partly  become  intelligible  to  him,  but  he  was 
the  more  inclined  to  think  that  Beethoven  must  be  much  overrated  as  a 
musician,  to  be  so  easily  followed.  This  could  not  be  called  education, 
for  he  had  never  so  much  as  listened  to  the  music.  He  had  been  thinking 
of  other  things.  Mere  mechanical  repetition  of  certain  sounds  had  stuck 
to  his  unconscious  mind.  Beethoven  might  have  this  power,  but  not 
Wagner,  or  at  all  events  not  the  Wagner  later  than  Tannhauser.  Near 
forty  years  passed  before  he  reached  the  Gotterdammerung. 

One  might  talk  of  the  revival  of  an  atrophied  sense, — the  mechanical 
reaction  of  a  sleeping  consciousness, — but  no  other  sense  awoke.  His 
sense  of  line  and  color  remained  as  dull  as  ever,  and  as  far  as  ever  below 
the  level  of  an  artist.  His  metaphysical  sense  did  not  spring  into  life, 
so  that  his  mind  could  leap  the  bars  of  German  expression  into  sym 
pathy  with  the  idealities  of  Kant  and  Hegel.  Although  he  insisted 
that  his  faith  in  German  thought  and  literature  was  exalted,  he  failed  to 


68  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

approach  German  thought,  and  he  shed  never  a  tear  of  emotion  over  the 
pages  of  Goethe  and  Schiller.  When  his  father  rashly  ventured  from 
time  to  time  to  write  him  a  word  of  common  sense,  the  young  man 
would  listen  to  no  sense  at  all,  but  insisted  that  Berlin  was  the  best 
of  educations  in  the  best  of  Germanies ;  yet,  when,  at  last,  April  came, 
and  some  genius  suggested  a  tramp  in  Thuringen,  his  heart  sang  like  a 
bird;  he  realised  what  a  nightmare  he  had  suffered,  and  he  made  up 
his  mind  that,  wherever  else  he  might,  in  the  infinities  of  space  and 
time,  seek  for  education,  it  should  not  be  again  in  Berlin. 


CHAPTER  VI 

1859-1860 

The  tramp  in  Thiiringen  lasted  four-and-twenty  hours.  By  the 
end  of  the  first  walk,  his  three  companions, — John  Bancroft,  James 
J.  Higginson  and  B.  W.  Crowninshield,  all  Boston  and  Harvard  College 
like  himself, — were  satisfied  with  what  they  had  seen,  and  when  they 
sat  down  to  rest  on  the  spot  where  Goethe  had  written: 

Warte  nur  !     balde 
Ruhest  du  auch  ! 

the  profoundness  of  the  thought  and  the  wisdom  of  the  advice  affected 
them  so  strongly  that  they  hired  a  wagon  and  drove  to  Weimar  the  same 
night.  They  were  all  quite  happy  and  light-hearted  in  the  first  fresh 
breath  of  leafless  spring,  and  the  beer  was  better  than  at  Berlin,  but  they 
were  all  equally  in  doubt  why  they  had  come  to  Germany,  and  not  one  of 
them  could  say  why  they  stayed.  Adams  stayed  because  he  did  not  want  to 
go  home,  and  he  had  fears  that  his  father's  patience  might  be  exhausted 
if  he  asked  to  waste  time  elsewhere. 

..  They  could  not  think  that  their  education  required  a  return  to 
Berlin.  A  few  days  at  Dresden  in  the  spring  weather  satisfied  them  that 
Dresden  was  a  better  spot  for  general  education  than  Berlin,  and  equally 
good  for  reading  Civil  Law.  They  were  possibly  right.  There  was  nothing 
to  study  in  Dresden,  and  no  education  to  be  gained,  but  the  Sistine 
Madonna  and  the  Correggios  were  famous ;  the  Theatre  and  Opera  were 
sometimes  excellent,  and  the  Elbe  was  prettier  than  the  Spree.  They 
could  always  fall  back  on  the  language.  So  he  took  a  room  in  the  house- 

69 


70  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

hold  of  the  usual  small  government  clerk  with  the  usual  plain  daughters, 
and  continued,  the  study  of  the  language.  Possibly  one  might  learn 
something  more  by  accident,  as  one  had  learned  something  of  Beethoven. 
For  the  next  eighteen  months  the  young  man  pursued  accidental  edu 
cation,  since  he  could  pursue  no  other ;  and  by  great  good  fortune,  Europe 
and  America  were  too  busy  with  their  own  affairs  to  give  much  attention 
to  his.  Accidental  education  had  every  chance  in  its  favor,  especially 
because  nothing  came  amiss. 

Perhaps  the  chief  obstacle  to  the  youth's  education,  now  that  he  had 
come  of  age,  was  his  honesty ;  his  simple-minded  faith  in  his  intentions. 
Even  after  Berlin  had  become  a  nightmare,  he  still  persuaded  himself  that 
his  German  education  was  a  success.  He  loved,  or  thought  he  loved  the 
people,  but  the  Germany  he  loved  was  the  eighteenth-century  which  the 
Germans  were  ashamed  of,  and  were  destroying  as  fast  as  they  could.  Of 
the  Germany  to  come,  he  knew  nothing.  Military  Germany  was  his 
abhorrence.  What  he  liked  was  the  simple  character;  the  good-natured 
sentiment ;  the  musical  and  metaphysical  abstraction ;  the  blundering  in 
capacity  of  the  German  for  practical  affairs.  At  that  time  everyone 
looked  on  Germany  as  incapable  of  competing  with  France,  England  or 
America  in  any  sort  of  organized  energy.  Germany  had  no  confidence 
in  herself,  and  no  reason  to  feel  it.  She  had  no  unity,  and  no  reason  to 
want  it.  She  never  had  unity.  Her  religious  and  social  history,  her 
economical  interests,  her  military  geography,  her  political  convenience, 
had  always  tended  to  eccentric  rather  than  concentric  motion.  Until 
coal-power  and  railways  were  created,  she  was  mediaeval  by  nature  and 
geography,  and  this  was  what  Adams,  under  the  teachings  of  Carlyle 
and  Lowell,  liked. 

He  was  in  a  fair  way  to  do  himself  lasting  harm,  floundering  be 
tween  worlds  passed  and  worlds  coming,  which  had  a  habit  of  crushing 
men  who  stayed  too  long  at  the  points  of  contact.  Suddenly  the  Emperor 
Napoleon  declared  war  on  Austria  and  raised  a  confused  point  of  morals 
in  the  mind  of  Europe.  France  was  the  nightmare  of  Germany,  and 
even  at  Dresden  one  looked  on  the  return  of  a  Napoleon  to  Leipsic  as  the 
most  likely  thing  in  the  world.  One  morning  the  government  clerk  in 
whose  family  Adams  was  staying,  rushed  into  his  room  to  consult  a  map  in 
order  that  he  might  measure  the  distance  from  Milan  to  Dresden.  The 


ROME  71 

third  Napoleon  had  reached  Lombardy,  and  only  fifty  or  sixty  years 
had  passed  since  the  first  Napoleon  had  begun  his  military  successes 
from  an  Italian  base. 

An  enlightened  young  American,  with  eighteenth-century  tastes  capped 
by  fragments  of  a  German  education  and  the  most  excellent  intentions,  had 
to  make  up  his  mind  about  the  moral  value  of  these  conflicting 
forces.  France  was  the  wicked  spirit  of  moral  politics,  and  whatever 
helped  France  must  be  so  far  evil.  At  that  time  Austria  was  another  evil 
spirit.  Italy  was  the  prize  they  disputed,  and  for  at  least  fifteen  hundred 
years,  had  been  the  chief  object  of  their  greed.  The  question  of  sympathy 
had  disturbed  a  number  of  persons  during  that  period.  The  question  of 
morals  had  been  put  in  a  number  of  cross-lights.  Should  one  be  Guelf 
or  Ghibelline  ?  No  doubt,  one  was  wiser  than  one's  neighbors  who  had 
found  no  way  of  settling  this  question  since  the  days  of  the  cave-dwellers, 
but  ignorance  did  better  to  discard  the  attempt  to  be  wise,  for  wisdom  had 
been  singularly  baffled  by  the  problem.  Better  take  sides  first,  and 
reason  about  it  for  the  rest  of  life. 

Not  that  Adams  felt  any  real  doubt  about  his  sympathies  or  wishes. 
He  had  not  been  German  long  enough  for  befogging  his  mind  to  that  point, 
but  the  moment  was  decisive  for  much  to  come,  especially  for  political 
morals.  His  morals  were  the  highest,  and  he  clung  to  them  to  preserve 
his  self-respect ;  but  steam  and  electricity  had  brought  about  new  political 
and  social  concentrations,  or  were  making  them  necessary  in  the  line 
of  his  moral  principles, — freedom,  education,  economic  development  and 
so  forth — which  required  association  with  allies  as  doubtful  as  Napoleon  III, 
and  robberies  with  violence  on  a  very  extensive  scale.  As  long  as  he 
could  argue  that  his  opponents  were  wicked,  he  could  join  in  robbing 
and  killing  them  without  a  qualm ;  but  it  might  happen  that  the  good 
were  robbed.  Education  insisted  on  finding  a  moral  foundation  for  robbery. 
He  could  hope  to  begin  life  in  the  character  of  no  animal  more  moral 
than  a  monkey  unless  he  could  satisfy  himself  when  and  why  robbery  and 
murder  were  a  virtue  and  duty.  Education  founded  on  mere  self-interest 
was  merely  Guelf  and  Ghibelline  over  again — Machiavelli  translated  into 
American. 

Luckily  for  him  he  had  a  sister  much  brighter  than  he  ever 
was, — though  he  thought  himself  a  rather  superior  person, — who  after 


72  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

marrying  Charles  Kuhn  of  Philadelphia,  had  come  to  Italy,  and,  like  all 
good  Americans  and  English,  was  hotly  Italian.  In  July,  1859,  she  was  at 
Thun  in  Switzerland,  and  there  Henry  Adams  joined  them.  Women  have, 
commonly,  a  very  positive  moral  sense ;  that  which  they  will,  is  right ; 
that  which  they  reject,  is  wrong ;  and  their  will,  in  most  cases,  ends  by 
settling  the  moral.  Mrs.  Kuhn  had  a  double  superiority.  She  not  only 
adored  Italy,  but  she  cordially  disliked  Germany  in  all  its  varieties.  She 
saw  no  gain  in  helping  her  brother  to  be  Germanised,  and  she  wanted  him 
much  to  be  civilised.  She  was  the  first  young  woman  he  was  ever  intimate 
with, — quick,  sensitive,  wilful,  or  full  of  will,  energetic,  sympathetic  and 
intelligent  enough  to  supply  a  score  of  men  with  ideas, — and  he  was  de 
lighted  to  give  her  the  reins ; — to  let  her  drive  him  where  she  would.  It 
was  his  first  experiment  in  giving  the  reins  to  a  woman,  and  he  was  so  much 
pleased  with  the  results  that  he  never  wanted  to  take  them  back.  In 
after  life  he  made  a  general  law  of  experience, — no  woman  had  ever 
driven  him  wrong  ;  no  man  had  ever  driven  him  right. 

Nothing  would  satisfy  Mrs.  Kuhn  but  to  go  to  the  seat  of  war  as 
soon  as  the  armistice  was  declared.  Wild  as  the  idea  seemed,  nothing  was 
easier.  The  party  crossed  the  St.  Gothard  and  reached  Milan,  picturesque 
with  every  sort  of  uniform  and  every  sign  of  war.  To  young  Adams 
this  first  plunge  into  Italy  passed  Beethoven  as  a  piece  of  accidental 
education.  Like  music,  it  differed  from  other  education  in  being,  not  a 
means  of  pursuing  life,  but  one  of  the  ends  attained.  Further,  on  these 
lines,  one  could  not  go.  It  had  but  one  defect, — that  of  attainment. 
Life  had  no  richer  impression  to  give ;  it  offers  barely  half-a-dozen  such,  and 
the  intervals  seem  long.  Exactly  what  they  teach  would  puzzle  a  Berlin 
jurist;  yet  they  seem  to  have  an  economic  value,  since  most  people  would 
decline  to  part  with  even  their  faded  memories  except  at  a  valuation  ridicu 
lously  extravagant.  They  were  also  what  men  pay  most  for ;  but  one's 
ideas  become  hopelessly  mixed  in  trying  to  reduce  such  forms  of  educa 
tion  to  a  standard  of  exchangeable  value,  and,  as  in  political  economy, 
one  had  best  disregard  altogether  what  cannot  be  stated  in  equivalents. 
The  proper  equivalent  of  pleasure  is  pain,  which  is  also  a  form  of  education. 

Not  satisfied  with  Milan,  Mrs.  Kuhn  insisted  on  invading  the  enemy's 
country,  and  the  carriage  was  chartered  for  Innsbruck  by  way  of  the 
Stelvio  pass.  The  Val  Tellina,  as  the  carriage  drove  up  it,  showed 


ROME  73 

war.  Garibaldi's  Cacciatori  were  the  only  visible  inhabitants.  No  one 
could  say  whether  the  pass  was  open,  but  in  any  case  no  carriage  had 
yet  crossed.  At  the  inns  the  handsome  young  officers  in  command  of 
the  detachments  were  delighted  to  accept  invitations  to  dinner  and  to 
talk  all  the  evening  of  their  battles  to  the  charming  patriot  who  sparkled 
with  interest  and  flattery,  but  not  one  of  them  knew  whether  their 
enemies,  the  abhorred  Austrian  Jagers,  would  let  the  travellers  through 
their  lines.  As  a  rule,  gaiety  was  not  the  character  failing  in  any 
party  that  Mrs.  Kuhn  belonged  to,  but  when  at  last,  after  climbing 
what  was  said  to  be  the  finest  carriage-pass  in  Europe,  the  carriage 
turned  the  last  shoulder,  where  the  glacier  of  the  Ortler  Spitze  tumbled 
its  huge  mass  down  upon  the  road,  even  Mrs.  Kuhn  gasped  when  she 
was  driven  directly  up  to  the  barricade  and  stopped  by  the  double  line 
of  sentries  stretching  on  either  side  up  the  mountains,  till  the  flash  of 
the  gun  barrels  was  lost  in  the  flash  of  the  snow.  For  accidental  edu 
cation  the  picture  had  its  value.  The  earliest  of  these  pictures  count 
for  most,  as  first  impressions  must,  and  Adams  never  afterwards  cared 
much  for  landscape  education,  except  perhaps  in  the  tropics  for  the  sake 
of  the  contrast.  As  education,  that  chapter,  too,  was  read,  and  set  aside. 

The  handsome  blonde  officers  of  the  Jagers  were  not  to  be  beaten 
in  courtesy  by  the  handsome  young  olive-toned  officers  of  the  Cacciatori. 
The  eternal  woman  as  usual  when  she  is  young,  pretty  and  engaging, 
had  her  way,  and  the  barricade  offered  no  resistance.  In  fifteen  minutes 
the  carriage  was  rolling  down  to  Mais,  swarming  with  German  soldiers 
and  German  fleas,  worse  than  the  Italian ;  and  German  language,  thought 
and  atmosphere,  of  which  young  Adams,  thanks  to  his  glimpse  of  Italy, 
never  again  felt  quite  the  old  confident  charm. 

Yet  he  could  talk  to  his  cabman  and  conscientiously  did  his  cathe 
drals,  his  Rhine,  and  whatever  his  companions  suggested.  Faithful  to 
his  self-contracted  scheme  of  passing  two  winters  in  study  of  the  Civil 
Law,  he  went  back  to  Dresden  with  a  letter  to  the  Frau  Hofrathin  von 
Reichenbach,  in  whose  house  Lowell  and  other  Americans  had  pursued 
studies  more  or  less  serious.  In  those  days,  the  "  Initials "  was  a  new 
book.  The  charm  which  its  clever  author  had  laboriously  woven  over 
Munich  gave  also  a  certain  reflected  light  to  Dresden.  Young  Adams 
had  nothing  to  do  but  take  fencing-lessons,  visit  the  Galleries  and  go 


74  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

to  the  Theatre ;  but  his  social  failure  in  the  line  of  "  The  Initials,"  was 
humiliating  and  he  succumbed  to  it.  The  Fran  HofrJithin  herself  was 
sometimes  roused  to  huge  laughter  at  the  total  discomfiture  and  helpless 
ness  of  the  young  American  in  the  face  of  her  society.  Possibly  an 
education  may  be  the  wider  and  the  richer  for  a  large  experience  of  the 
world ;  Raphael  Pumpelly  and  Clarence  King,  at  about  the  same  time, 
were  enriching  their  education  by  a  picturesque  intimacy  with  the  manners 
of  the  Apaches  and  Digger  Indians.  All  experience  is  an  arch,  to  build 
upon.  Yet  Adams  admitted  himself  unable  to  guess  what  use  his  second 
winter  in  Germany  was  to  him,  or  what  he  expected  it  to  be.  Even 
the  doctrine  of  accidental  education  broke  down.  There  were  no  accidents 
in  Dresden.  As  soon  as  the  winter  was  over,  he  closed  and  locked  the 
German  door  with  a  long  breath  of  relief,  and  took  the  road  to  Italy. 
He  had  then  pursued  his  education,  as  it  pleased  him,  for  eighteen  months, 
and  in  spite  of  the  infinite  variety  of  new  impressions  which  had  packed 
themselves  into  his  mind,  he  knew  no  more,  for  his  practical  purposes, 
than  the  day  he  graduated.  He  had  made  no  step  towards  a  profession. 
He  was  as  ignorant  as  a  schoolboy  of  society.  He  was  unfit  for  any 
career  in  Europe,  and  unfitted  for  any  career  in  America,  and  he  had  not 
natural  intelligence  enough  to  see  what  a  mess  he  had  thus  far  made 
of  his  education. 

By  twisting  life  to  follow  accidental  and  devious  paths,  one  might 
perhaps  find  some  use  for  accidental  and  devious  knowledge,  but  this 
had  been  no  part  of  Henry  Adams's  plan  when  he  chose  the  path  most 
admired  by  the  best  judges,  and  followed  it  till  he  found  it  led  nowhere. 
Nothing  had  been  further  from  his  mind  when  he  started  in  November, 
1858,  than  to  become  a  tourist,  but  a  mere  tourist,  and  nothing  else, 
he  had  become  in  April,  1860,  when  he  joined  his  sister  in  Florence. 
His  father  had  been  in  the  right.  The  young  man  felt  a  little  sore 
about  it.  Supposing  his  father  asked  him,  on  his  return,  what  equivalent 
he  had  brought  back  for  the  time  and  money  put  into  his  experiment ! 
The  only  possible  answer  would  be :  "  Sir,  I  am  a  tourist ! " 

The  answer  was  not  what  he  had  meant  it  to  be,  and  he  was  not  likely 
to  better  it  by  asking  his  father,  in  turn,  what  equivalent  his  brothers 
or  cousins  or  friends  at  home  had  got  out  of  the  same  time  and  money 
spent  in  Boston.  All  they  had  put  into  the  law  was  certainly  thrown 


ROME  75 

away,  but  were  they  happier  in  science  ?  In  theory  one  might  say,  with 
some  show  of  proof,  that  a  pure,  scientific  education  was  alone  correct; 
yet  many  of  his  friends  who  took  it,  found  reason  to  complain  that  it 
was  anything  but  a  pure,  scientific  world  in  which  they  lived. 

Meanwhile  his  father  had  quite  enough  perplexities  of  his  own,  with 
out  seeking  more  in  his  son's  errors.  His  Quincy  district  had  sent  him 
to  Congress,  and  in  the  spring  of  1860  he  was  in  the  full  confusion  of 
nominating  candidates  for  the  Presidential  election  in  November.  He 
supported  Mr.  Seward.  The  Republican  Party  was  an  unknown  force, 
and  the  Democratic  Party  was  torn  to  pieces.  No  one  could  see  far 
into  the  future.  Fathers  could  blunder  as  well  as  sons,  and,  in  1860, 
everyone  was  conscious  of  being  dragged  along  paths  much  less  secure 
than  those  of  the  European  tourist.  For  the  time,  the  young  man  was 
safe  from  interference,  and  went  on  his  way  with  a  light  heart  to  take 
whatever  chance  fragments  of  education  God  or  the  devil  was  pleased  to 
give  him,  for  he  knew  no  longer  the  good  from  the  bad. 

He  had  of  both  sorts  more  than  he  knew  how  to  use.  Perhaps  the 
most  useful  purpose  he  set  himself  to  serve  was  that  of  his  pen,  for 
he  wrote  long  letters,  during  the  next  three  months,  to  his  brother 
Charles,  which  his  brother  caused  to  be  printed  in  the  Boston  Courier ; 
and  the  exercise  was  good  for  him.  He  had  little  to  say,  and  said  it 
not  very  well,  but  that  mattered  less.  The  habit  of  expression  leads  to 
the  search  for  something  to  express.  Something  remains  as  a  residuum 
of  the  commonplace  itself,  if  one  strikes  out  every  commonplace  in  the 
expression.  Young  men  as  a  rule  saw  little  in  Italy,  or  anywhere  else, 
and  in  after  life,  when  Adams  began  to  learn  what  some  men  could  see, 
he  shrank  into  corners  of  shame  at  the  thought  that  he  should  have 
betrayed  his  own  inferiority  as  though  it  were  his  pride,  which  he  in 
vited  his  neighbors  to  measure  and  admire;  but  it  was  still  the  nearest 
approach  he  had  yet  made  to  an  intelligent  act. 

For  the  rest,  Italy  was  mostly  an  emotion  and  the  emotion  naturally 
centered  in  Rome.  The  American  parent,  curiously  enough,  while 
bitterly  hostile  to  Paris,  seemed  rather  disposed  to  accept  Rome  as  legiti 
mate  education,  though  abused;  but  to  young  men  seeking  education 
in  a  serious  spirit,  taking  for  granted  that  everything  had  a  cause,  and 
that  nature  tended  to  an  end,  Rome  was  altogether  the  most  violent 


76  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

vice  in  the  world,  and  Rome  before  1870  was  seductive  beyond  resistance. 
The  month  of  May,  1860,  was  divine.  No  doubt  other  young  men, 
and  occasionally  young  women,  have  passed  the  month  of  May  in  Rome 
since  then,  and  conceive  that  the  charm  continues  to  exist.  Possibly  it  does, 
— in  them, — but  in  1860  the  lights  and  shadows  were  still  mediaeval,  and 
mediaeval  Rome  was  alive ;  the  shadows  breathed  and  glowed,  full  of 
soft  forms  felt  by  lost  senses.  No  sand-blast  of  science  had  yet  skinned 
off  the  epidermis  of  history,  thought  and  feeling.  The  pictures  were  un- 
cleaned,  the  churches  unrestored,  the  ruins  unexcavated.  Mediaeval  Rome 
was  sorcery.  Rome  was  the  worst  spot  on  earth  to  teach  nineteenth- 
century  youth  what  to  do  with  a  twentieth-century  world.  One's 
emotions  in  Rome  were  one's  private  affair,  like  one's  glass  of  absinthe 
before  dinner  in  the  Palais  Royal ;  they  must  be  hurtful,  else  they 
could  not  have  been  so  intense ;  and  they  were  surely  immoral,  for  no 
one,  priest  or  politician,  could  honestly  read  in  the  ruins  of  Rome  any  other 
certain  lesson  than  that  they  were  evidence  of  the  just  judgments  of  an 
outraged  God  against  all  the  doings  of  man.  This  moral  unfitted  young 
men  for  every  sort  of  useful  activity ;  it  made  Rome  a  gospel  of  anarchy 
and  vice ;  the  last  place  under  the  sun  for  educating  the  young ;  yet  it 
was,  by  common  consent,  the  only  spot  that  the  young, — of  either  sex 
and  every  race, — passionately,  perversely,  wickedly  loved. 

Boys  never  see  a  conclusion ;  only  on  the  edge  of  the  grave  can  man 
conclude  anything ;  but  the  first  impulse  given  to  the  boy  is  apt  to 
lead  or  drive  him  for  the  rest  of  his  life  into  conclusion  after  conclusion 
that  he  never  dreamed  of  reaching.  One  looked  idly  enough  at  the  Forum 
or  at  Saint  Peter's,  but  one  never  forgot  the  look,  and  it  never  ceased 
reacting.  To  a  young  Bostonian,  fresh  from  Germany,  Rome  seemed 
a  pure  emotion,  quite  free  from  economic  or  actual  values,  and  he 
could  not  in  reason  or  common  sense  foresee  that  it  was  mechanically 
piling  up  conundrum  after  conundrum  in  his  educational  path,  which 
seemed  unconnected  but  that  he  had  got  to  connect ;  that  seemed  in 
soluble  but  had  got  to  be  somehow  solved.  Rome  was  not  a  beetle  to  be 
dissected  and  dropped;  not  a  bad  French  novel  to  be  read  in  a  railway- 
train  and  thrown  out  of  the  window  after  other  bad  French  novels,  the 
morals  of  which  could  never  approach  the  immorality  of  Roman  history. 
Rome  was  actual ;  it  was  England ;  it  was  going  to  be  America.  Rome 


ROME  77 

could  not  be  fitted  into  an  orderly,  middle-class,  Bostonian,  systematic 
scheme  of  evolution.  No  law  of  progress  applied  to  it.  Not  even  time- 
sequences — the  last  refuge  of  helpless  historians — had  value  for  it.  The 
Forum  no  more  led  to  the  Vatican  than  the  Vatican  to  the  Forum. 
Rienzi,  Garibaldi,  Tiberius  Gracchus,  Aurelian  might  be  mixed  up  in 
any  relation  of  time,  along  with  a  thousand  more,  and  never  lead  to 
a  sequence.  The  great  word  Evolution  had  not  yet,  in  1860,  made  a 
new  religion  of  history,  but  the  old  religion  had  preached  the  same 
doctrine  for  a  thousand  years  without  finding  in  the  entire  history  of 
Rome  anything  but  flat  contradiction. 

Of  course  both  priests  and  evolutionists  bitterly  denied  this  heresy, 
but  what  they  affirmed  or  denied  in  1860  had  very  little  importance  in 
deed  for  1960.  Anarchy  lost  no  ground  meanwhile.  The  problem  became 
only  the  more  fascinating.  Probably  it  was  more  vital  in  May,  1860, 
than  it  had  been  in  October,  1764,  when  the  idea  of  writing  the  Decline 
and  Fall  of  the  city  first  started  to  the  mind  of  Gibbon,  "  in  the  close 
of  the  evening,  as  I  sat  musing  in  the  Church  of  the  Zoccolanti  or 
Franciscan  Friars,  while  they  were  singing  Vespers  in  the  Temple  of 
Jupiter,  on  the  ruins  of  the  Capitol."  Murray's  Handbook  had  the  grace 
to  quote  this  passage  from  Gibbon's  Autobiography,  which  led  Adams  more 
than  once  to  sit  at  sunset  on  the  steps  of  the  Church  of  Santa  Maria  di 
Ara  Coeli,  curiously  wondering  that  not  an  inch  had  been  gained 
by  Gibbon, — or  all  the  historians  since, — towards  explaining  the  Fall. 
The  mystery  remained  unsolved ;  the  charm  remained  intact.  Two  great 
experiments  of  western  civilisation  had  left  there  the  chief  monuments  of 
their  failure,  and  nothing  proved  that  the  city  might  not  still  survive 
to  express  the  failure  of  a  third. 

The  young  man  had  no  idea  what  he  was  doing.  The  thought  of 
posing  for  a  Gibbon  never  entered  his  mind.  He  was  a  tourist,  even 
to  the  depths  of  his  sub-consciousness,  and  it  was  well  for  him  that  he 
should  be  nothing  else,  for  even  the  greatest  of  men  cannot  sit  with 
dignity,  "  in  the  •  close  of  evening,  among  the  ruins  of  the  Capitol,"  un 
less  they  have  something  quite  original  to  say  about  it.  Tacitus  could 
do  it ;  so  could  Michael  Angelo ;  and  so,  at  a  pinch,  could  Gibbon, 
though  in  figure  hardly  heroic ;  but,  in  sum,  none  of  them  could  say 
very  much  more  than  the  tourist,  who  went  on  repeating  to  himself  the 


78  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

eternal  question  :  —  Why  !  Why  ! !  Why  !  ! !  —  as  his  neighbor,  the  blind 
beggar,  might  do,  sitting  next  him,  on  the  church  steps.  No  one 
ever  had  answered  the  question  to  the  satisfaction  of  anyone  else ;  yet 
everyone  who  had  either  head  or  heart,  felt  that  sooner  or  later  he  must 
make  up  his  mind  what  answer  to  accept.  Substitute  the  word 
America  for  the  word  Home,  and  the  question  became  personal. 

Perhaps  Henry  learned  something  in  Rome,  though  he  never  knew 
it,  and  never  sought  it.  Rome  dwarfs  teachers.  The  greatest  men  of 
the  age  scarcely  bore  the  test  of  posing  with  Rome  for  a  background. 
Perhaps  Garibaldi, — possibly  even  Cavour, — could  have  sat  "  in  the  close 
of  the  evening,  among  the  ruins  of  the  Capitol,"  but  one  hardly  saw 
Napoleon  III  there,  or  Palmerston  or  Tennyson  or  Longfellow.  One 
morning,  Adams  happened  to  be  chatting  in  the  studio  of  Hamilton  Wilde, 
when  a  middle-aged  Englishman  came  in,  evidently  excited,  and  told  of 
the  shock  he  had  just  received,  when  riding  near  the  Circus  Maximus, 
at  coming  unexpectedly  on  the  guillotine,  where  some  criminal  had  been 
put  to  death  an  hour  or  two  before.  The  sudden  surprise  had  quite 
overcome  him ;  and  Adams,  who  seldom  saw  the  point  of  a  story  till  time 
had  blunted  it,  listened  sympathetically  to  learn  what  new  form  of  grim 
horror  had  for  the  moment  wiped  out  the  memory  of  two  thousand  years 
of  Roman  bloodshed,  or  the  consolation,  derived  from  history  and  statistics, 
that  most  citizens  of  Rome  seemed  to  be  the  better  for  guillotining. 
Only  by  slow  degrees,  he  grappled  the  conviction  that  the  victim  of  the 
shock  was  Robert  Browning ;  and,  on  the  background  of  the  Circus 
Maximus,  the  Christian  martyrs  flaming  as  torches,  and  the  morning's 
murderer  on  the  block,  Browning  seemed  rather  in  place,  as  a  middle-aged 
gentlemanly  English  Pippa  Passes ;  while  afterwards,  in  the  light  of  Bel- 
gravia  dinner-tables,  he  never  made  part  of  his  background  except  by 
effacement.  Browning  might  have  sat  with  Gibbon,  among  the  ruins,  and 
few  Romans  would  have  smiled. 

Yet  Browning  never  revealed  the  poetic  depths  of  Saint  Francis ; 
William  Story  could  not  teach  the  secret  of  Michael  Angelo ;  and 
Mommsen  hardly  said  all  that  one  felt  by  instinct  in  the  lives  of  Cicero 
and  Caesar.  They  taught  what,  as  a  rule,  needed  no  teaching,  the  lessons 
of  a  rather  cheap  imagination  and  cheaper  politics.  Rome  was  a  bewil 
dering  complex  of  ideas,  experiments,  ambitions,  energies ;  without  her, 


ROME  79 

the  western  world  was  pointless  and  fragmentary ;  she  gave  heart  and 
unity  to  it  all ;  yet  Gibbon  might  have  gone  on  for  the  whole  century, 
sitting  among  the  ruins  of  the  Capitol,  and  no  one  would  have  passed, 
capable  of  telling  him  what  it  meant.  Perhaps  it  meant  nothing. 

So  it  ended ;  the  happiest  month  of  May  that  life  had  yet  offered, 
fading  behind  the  present,  and  probably  beyond  the  past,  somewhere 
into  abstract  time,  grotesquely  out  of  place  with  the  Berlin  scheme 
or  a  Boston  future.  Adams  explained  to  himself  that  he  was  absorbing 
knowledge.  He  would  have  put  it  better  had  he  said  that  knowledge 
was  absorbing  him.  He  was  passive.  In  spite  of  swarming  impressions 
he  knew  no  more  when  he  left  Rome  than  he  did  when  he  entered  it. 
As  a  marketable  object,  his  value  was  less.  His  next  step  went  far  to 
convince  him  that  accidental  education,  whatever  its  economical  return 
might  be,  was  prodigiously  successful  as  an  object  in  itself.  Everything 
conspired  to  ruin  his  sound  scheme  of  life,  and  to  make  him  a  vagrant 
as  well  as  pauper.  He  went  on  to  Naples,  and  there,  in  the  hot  June, 
heard  rumors  that  Garibaldi  and  his  thousand  were  about  to  attack  Palermo. 
Calling  on  the  American  minister,  Chandler  of  Pennsylvania,  he  was  kindly 
treated,  not  for  his  merit  but  for  his  name,  and  Mr.  Chandler  amiably 
consented  to  send  him  to  the  seat  of  war  as  bearer  of  despatches  to 
Captain  Palmer  of  the  American  sloop  of  war  "  Iroquois."  Young  Adams 
seized  the  chance,  and  went  to  Palermo  in  a  government  transport  filled 
with  fleas  commanded  by  a  charming  Prince  Caracciolo. 

He  told  all  about  it  to  the  Boston  Courier,  where  the  narrative 
probably  exists  to  this  day,  unless  the  files  of  the  Courier  have  wholly 
perished ;  but  of  its  bearing  on  education  the  Courier  did  not  speak.  He 
himself  would  have  much  liked  to  know  whether  it  had  any  bearing 
whatever,  and  what  was  its  value  as  a  post-graduate  course.  Quite  apart 
from  its  value  as  life  attained,  realised,  capitalised,  it  had  also  a  certain 
value  as  a  lesson  in  something,  though  Adams  could  never  classify  the 
branch  of  study.  Loosely,  the  tourist  called  it  knowledge  of  men,  but 
it  was  just  the  reverse ;  it  was  knowledge  of  one's  ignorance  of  men. 
Captain  Palmer  of  the  "  Iroquois,"  who  was  a  friend  of  the  young 
man's  uncle,  Sidney  Brooks,  look  him  with  the  officers  of  the  ship  to 
make  an  evening  call  on  Garibaldi,  whom  they  found  in  the  Senate 
House  towards  sunset,  at  supper  with  his  picturesque  and  piratic  staff, 


80  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

in  the  full  noise  and  color  of  the  Palermo  revolution.  As  a  spectacle,  it 
belonged  to  Rossini  and  the  Italian  Opera,  or  to  Alexander  Dumas  at 
the  least,  but  the  spectacle  was  not  its  educational  side.  Garibaldi 
left  the  table,  and,  sitting  down  at  the  window,  had  a  few  words  of 
talk  with  Captain  Palmer  and  young  Adams.  At  that  moment,  in 
the  summer  of  1860,  Garibaldi  was  certainly  the  most  serious  of  the 
doubtful  energies  in  the  world  ;  the  most  essential  to  guage  rightly.  Even 
then  society  was  dividing  between  banker  and  anarchist.  One  or  the  other, 
Garibaldi  must  serve.  Himself  a  typical  anarchist,  sure  to  overshadow 
Europe  and  alarm  empires  bigger  than  Naples,  his  success  depended  on 
his  mind ;  his  energy  was  beyond  doubt. 

Adams  had  the  chance  to  look  this  sphinx  in  the  eyes,  and,  for 
five  minutes  to  watch  him  like  a  wild  animal,  at  the  moment  of  his 
greatest  achievement  and  most  splendid  action.  One  saw  a  quiet-featured, 
quiet-voiced  man  in  a  red  flannel  shirt ;  absolutely  impervious ;  a  type  of 
which  Adams  knew  nothing.  Sympathetic  it  was,  and  one  felt  that  it 
was  simple ;  one  suspected  even  that  it  might  be  childlike,  but  could 
form  no  guess  of  its  intelligence.  In  his  own  eyes  Garibaldi  might 
be  a  Napoleon  or  a  Spartacus ;  in  the  hands  of  Cavour  he  might  become 
a  Condottiere  ;  in  the  eyes  of  history  he  might,  like  the  rest  of  the  world, 
be  only  the  vigorous  player  in  the  game  he  did  not  understand. 
The  student  was  none  the  wiser. 

This  compound  nature  of  patriot  and  pirate  had  illumined  Italian 
history  from  the  beginning,  and  was  no  more  intelligible  to  itself 
than  to  a  young  American  who  had  no  experience  in  double  natures.  In  the 
end,  if  the  Autobiography  tells  truth,  Garibaldi  saw  and  said  that  he 
had  not  understood  his  own  acts ;  that  he  had  been  an  instrument ;  that 
he  had  served  the  purposes  of  the  class  he  least  wanted  to  help ;  yet 
in  1860  he  thought  himself  the  revolution  anarchic,  Napoleonic,  and  his 
ambition  was  unbounded.  What  should  a  young  Bostonian  have  made 
of  a  character  like  this,  internally  alive  with  childlike  fancies,  and 
externally  quiet,  simple,  almost  innocent ;  uttering  with  apparent  convic 
tion  the  usual  commonplaces  of  popular  politics  that  all  politicians  use 
as  the  small  change  of  their  intercourse  with  the  public ;  but  never 
betraying  a  thought  ? 

Precisely  this  class  of  mind  was  to  be  the  toughest  problem  of  Adams's 


ROME  81 

practical  life,  but  he  could  never  make  anything  of  it.  The  lesson  of 
Garibaldi,  as  education,  seemed  to  teach  the  extreme  complexity  of  ex 
treme  simplicity  ;  but  one  could  have  learned  this  from  a  grubworm.  One 
did  not  need  the  vivid  recollection  of  the  low-voiced,  simple-mannered, 
seafaring  captain  of  Genoese  adventurers  and  Sicilian  brigands,  supping 
in  the  July  heat  and  Sicilian  dirt  and  revolutionary  clamor,  among 
the  barricaded  streets  of  insurgent  Palermo,  merely  in  order  to  remember 
that  simplicity  is  complex. 

Adams  left  the  problem  as  he  found  it,  and  came  north  to  stumble 
over  others,  less  picturesque  but  nearer.  He  squandered  two  or  three  months 
on  Paris.  From  the  first  he  had  avoided  Paris,  and  had  wanted  no 
French  influence  in  his  education.  He  disapproved  of  France  in  the 
lump.  A  certain  knowledge  of  the  language  one  must  have ;  enough'  to 
order  dinner  and  buy  a  theatre  ticket ;  but  more  he  did  not  seek.  He 
disliked  the  Empire  and  the  Emperor  particularly,  but  this  was  a  trifle ; 
he  disliked  most  the  French  mind.  To  save  himself  the  trouble  of 
drawing  up  a  long  list  of  all  that  he  disliked,  he  disapproved  of  the 
whole,  once  for  all,  and  shut  them  figuratively  out'  of  his  life.  France 
was  not  serious,  and  he  was  not  serious  in  going  there. 

He  did  this  in  good  faith,  obeying  the  lessons  his  teachers  had 
taught  him ;  but  the  curious  result  followed  that,  being  in  no  way 
responsible  for  the  French  and  sincerely  disapproving  them,  he  felt 
quite  at  liberty  to  enjoy  to  the  full  everything  he  disapproved.  Stated 
thus  crudely,  the  idea  sounds  derisive ;  but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  several 
thousand  Americans  passed  much  of  their  time  there  on  this  understanding. 
They  sought  to  take  share  in  every  function  that  was  open  to  approach, 
as  they  sought  tickets  to  the  Opera,  because  they  were  not  a  part  of  it. 
Adams  did  like  the  rest.  All  thought  of  serious  education  had  long 
vanished.  He  tried  to  acquire  a  few  French  idioms,  without  even  aspiring 
to  master  a  subjunctive,  but  he  succeeded  better  in  acquiring  a  modest  taste 
for  Bordeaux  and  Burgundy  and  one  or  two  sauces ;  for  the  Trois  Freres 
Proven§eaux  and  Voisin's  and  Philippe's  and  the  Cafe  Anglais;  for  the  Palais 
Royal  Theatre,  and  the  Varietes  and  the  Gymnase ;  for  the  Brohans 
and  Bressant,  Rose  Cheri  and  Gil  Perez,  and  other  lights  of  the  stage. 
His  friends  were  good  to  him.  Life  was  amusing.  Paris  rapidly  be 
came  familiar.  In  a  month  or  six  weeks  he  forgot  even  to  disapprove 
6 


82  THE   EDUCATION   OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

of  it ;  but  he  studied  nothing,  entered  no  society,  and  made  no  acquaint 
ance.  Accidental  education  went  far  in  Paris,  and  one  picked  up  a  deal 
of  knowledge  that  might  become  useful ;  perhaps,  after  all,  the  three 
months  passed  there  might  serve  better  purpose  than  the  twenty- 
one  months  passed  elsewhere;  but  he  did  not  intend  it, — did  not  think 
it, — and  looked  at  it  as  a  momentary  and  frivolous  vacation  before 
going  home  to  fit  himself  for  life.  Therewith,  after  staying  as  long  as  he 
could  and  spending  all.  the  money  he  dared,  he  started  with  mixed 
emotions  but  no  education,  for  home. 


CHAPTER    VII 

1860-1861 

When,  forty  years  afterwards,  Henry  Adams  looked  back  over  his 
adventures  in  search  of  knowledge,  he  asked  himself  whether  fortune 
or  fate  had  ever  dealt  its  cards  quite  so  wildly  to  any  of  his  known  an- 
tecessors  as  when  it  led  him  to  begin  the  study  of  law  and  to  vote  for 
Abraham  Lincoln  on  the  same  day. 

He  dropped  back  on  Quincy  like  a  lump  of  lead  ;  he  rebounded  like 
a  foot-ball,  tossed  into  space  by  an  unknown  energy  which  played  with 
all  his  generation  as  a  cat  plays  with  mice.  The  simile  is  none  too 
strong.  Not  one  man  in  America  wanted  the  civil  war,  or  expected  or 
intended  it.  A  small  minority  wanted  secession.  The  vast  majority 
wanted  to  go  on  with  their  occupations  in  peace.  Not  one,  however  clever 
or  learned,  guessed  what  happened.  Possibly  a  few  southern  loyalists 
in  despair  might  dream  it  as  an  impossible  chance ;  but  none  planned  it. 

As  for  Henry  Adams,  fresh  from  Europe  and  chaos  of  another  sort, 
he  plunged  at  once  into  a  lurid  atmosphere  of  politics,  quite  heedless 
of  any  education  or  forethought.  His  past  melted  away.  The  prodigal 
was  welcomed  home,  but  not  even  his  father  asked  a  malicious  question 
about  the  Pandects.  At  the  utmost,  he  hinted  at  some  shade  of  pro 
digality  by  quietly  inviting  his  son  to  act  as  private  secretary  during 
the  winter  in  Washington,  as  though  any  young  man  who  could  afford 
to  throw  away  two  winters  on  the  Civil  Law  could  afford  to  read 
Blackstone  for  another  winter  without  a  master.  The  young  man  was 
beyond  satire,  and  asked  only  a  pretext  for  throwing  all  education  to  the 
east  wind.  November  at  best  is  sad,  and  November  at  Quincy  had  been 
from  earliest  childhood  the  least  gay  of  seasons.  Nowhere  else  does  the  un- 

83 


84  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

charitable  autumn  wreak  its  spite  so  harshly  on  the  frail  wreck  of  the 
grasshopper  summer;  yet  even  a  Quincy  November  seemed  temperate 
before  the  chill  of  a  Boston  January. 

This  was  saying  much,  for  the  November  of  1860  at  Quincy 
stood  apart  from  other  memories  as  lurid  beyond  description.  Although 
no  one  believed  in  civil  war,  the  air  reeked  of  it,  and  the  Repub 
licans  organised  their  clubs  and  parades  as  Wide  Awakes  in  a  form 
military  in  all  things  except  weapons.  Henry  reached  home  in 
time  to  see  the  last  of  these  processions,  stretching  in  ranks  of  torches 
along  the  hill-side,  file  down  through  the  November  night  to  the  Old 
House,  where  Mr.  Adams,  their  Member  of  Congress,  received  them,  and, 
let  them  pretend  what  they  liked,  their  air  was  not  that  of  innocence. 

Profoundly  ignorant,  anxious  and  curious,  the  young  man  packed 
his  modest  trunk  again,  which  had  not  yet  time  to  be  unpacked,  and 
started  for  Washington  with  his  family.  Ten  years  had  passed  since 
his  last  visit,  but  very  little  had  changed.  As  in  1800  and  1850,  so 
in  1860,  the  same  rude  colony  was  camped  in  the  same  forest,  with 
the  same  unfinished  Greek  temples  for  work-rooms,  and  sloughs  for 
roads.  The  government  had  an  air  of  social  instability  and  incom 
pleteness  that  went  far  to  support  the  right  of  secession  in  theory  as 
in  fact;  but  right  or  wrong,  secession  was  likely  to  be  easy  where 
there  was  so  little  to  secede  from.  The  Union  was  a  sentiment,  but 
not  much  more,  and  in  December,  1860,  the  sentiment  about  the 
Capitol  was  chiefly  hostile,  so  far  as  it  made  itself  felt.  John  Adams 
was  better  off  in  Philadelphia  in  1776  than  his  great-grandson  Henry 
in  1860  in  Washington. 

Patriotism  ended  by  throwing  a  halo  over  the  Continental  Con 
gress,  but  over  the  close  of  the  Thirty-sixth  Congress  in  1860-61,  no 
halo  could  be  thrown  by  anyone  who  saw  it.  Of  all  the  crowd 
swarming  in  Washington  that  winter,  young  Adams  was  surely  among 
the  most  ignorant  and  helpless,  but  he  saw  plainly  that  the  knowl 
edge  possessed  by  everybody  about  him  was  hardly  greater  than 
his  own.  Never  in  a  long  life  did  he  seek  to  master  a  lesson  so 
obscure.  Mr.  Sumner  was  given  to  saying  after  Oxenstiern  : — "  Quan- 
tula  sapientia  mundus  regitur ! "  Oxenstiern  talked  of  a  world  that 
wanted  wisdom ;  but  Adams  found  himself  seeking  education  in  a  world 


TREASON  85 

that  seemed  to  him  both  unwise  and  ignorant.  The  Southern  seces 
sionists  were  certainly  unbalanced  in  mind  —  fit  for  medical  treatment, 
like  other  victims  of  hallucination,  —  haunted  by  suspicion,  by  idees  fixes, 
by  violent  morbid  excitement ;  but  this  was  not  all.  They  were  stupen 
dously  ignorant  of  the  world.  As  a  class,  the  cotton-planters  were 
mentally  one-sided,  ill-balanced  and  provincial  to  a  degree  rarely  known. 
They  were  a  close  society  on  whom  the  new  fountains  of  power  had  poured 
a  stream  of  wealth  and  slaves  that  acted  like  oil  on  flame.  They 
showed  a  young  student  his  first  object-lesson  of  the  way  in  which 
excess  of  power  worked  when  held  by  inadequate  hands. 

This  might  be  a  commonplace  of  1900  but  in  1860  it  was  paradox. 
The  southern  statesmen  were  regarded  as  standards  of  statesmanship, 
and  such  standards  barred  education.  Charles  Sumner's  chief  offence 
was  his  insistance  on  southern  ignorance,  and  he  stood  a  living  proof 
of  it.  To  this  school,  Henry  Adams  had  come  for  a  new  education, 
and  the  school  was  seriously,  honestly,  taken  by  most  of  the  world, 
including  Europe,  as  proper  for  the  purpose,  although  the  Sioux  Indians 
would  have  taught  less  mischief.  From  such  contradictions  among  intelli 
gent  people,  what  was  a  young  man  to  learn? 

He  could  learn  nothing  but  cross-purpose.  The  old  and  typical 
southern  gentleman  developed  as  cotton-planter  had  nothing  to  teach  or  to 
give,  except  warning.  Even  as  example  to  be  avoided,  he  was  too  glaring 
in  his  defiance  of  reason,  to  help  the  education  of  a  reasonable  being. 
No  one  learned  a  useful  lesson  from  the  Confederate  school  except  to 
keep  away  from  it.  Thus,  at  one  sweep,  the  whole  field  of  instruction 
south  of  the  Potomac  was  shut  off;  it  was  overshadowed  by  the  cotton- 
planters,  from  whom  one  could  learn  nothing  but  bad  temper,  bad 
manners,  poker,  and  treason. 

Perforce,  the  student  was  thrown  back  on  northern  precept  and 
example ;  first  of  all,  on  his  New  England  surroundings.  Republican 
houses  were  few  in  Washington,  and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Adams  aimed  to  create 
a  social  centre  for  New  Englanders.  They  took  a  house  on  K  Street, 
looking  over  Pennsylvania  Avenue,  well  out  towards  Georgetown, — the 
Markoe  house  —  and  there  the  private  secretary  began  to  learn  his  social 
duties,  for  the  political  were  confined  to  committee-rooms  and  lobbies  of 


86  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

the  Capitol.      He  had  little  to  do,  and  knew  not  how  to  do  it  rightly, 
but  he  knew  of  no  one  who  knew  more. 

The  southern  type  was  one  to  be  avoided ;  the  New  England  type 
was  oneself.  It  had  nothing  to  show  except  one's  own  features.  Setting 
aside  Charles  Sumner,  who  stood  quite  alone  and  was  the  boy's  oldest 
friend,  all  the  New  Englanders  were  sane  and  steady  men,  well-balanced, 
educated  and  free  from  meanness  or  intrigue, — men  whom  one  liked  to 
act  with,  and  who,  whether  graduates  or  not,  bore  the  stamp  of  Harvard 
College.  Anson  Burlingame  was  one  exception,  and  perhaps  Israel  Wash- 
burn  another ;  but  as  a  rule  the  New  Englander's  strength  was  his  poise 
which  almost  amounted  to  a  defect.  He  offered  no  more  target  for  love 
than  for  hate ;  he  attracted  as  little  as  he  repelled ;  even  as  a  machine, 
his  motion  seemed  never  accelerated.  The  character,  with  its  force 
or  feebleness,  was  familiar;  one  knew  it  to  the  core;  one  was  it, — had 
been  run  in  the  same  mould. 

There  remained  the  central  and  western  States,  but  there  the  choice 
of  teachers  was  not  large  and  in  the  end  narrowed  itself  to  Preston  King, 
Henry  Winter .  Davis,  Owen  Lovejoy  and  a  few  other  men  born  with 
social  faculty.  Adams  took  most  kindly  to  Henry  J.  Raymond  who 
came  to  view  the  field  for  the  New  York  Times,  and  who  was  a  man  of 
the  world.  The  average  Congressman  was  civil  enough,  but  had  nothing 
to  ask  except  offices,  and  nothing  to  offer  but  the  views  of  his  district. 
The  average  Senator  was  more  reserved,  but  had  not  much  more  to  say, 
being  always,  excepting  one  or  two  genial  natures,  handicapped  by  his 
own  importance. 

Study  it  as  one  might,  the  hope  of  education,  till  the  arrival  of  the 
President-elect,  narrowed  itself  to  the  possible  influence  of  only  two 
men  —  Sumner  and  Seward. 

Sumner  was  then  fifty  years  old.  Since  his  election  as  senator  in  1851 
he  had  passed  beyond  the  reach  of  his  boy  friend,  and,  after  his  Brooks 
injuries,  his  nervous  system  never  quite  recovered  its  tone ;  but  perhaps 
eight  or  ten  years  of  solitary  existence  as  senator  had  most  to  do  with 
his  development.  No  man,  however  strong,  can  serve  ten  years  as 
school-master,  priest  or  senator,  and  remain  fit  for  anything  else.  All  the 
dogmatic  stations  in  life  have  the  effect  of  fixing  a  certain  stiffness  of 
attitude  forever,  as  though  they  mesmerised  the  subject.  Yet  even 


TREASON  87 

among  senators  there  were  degrees  in  dogmatism,  from  the  frank  South 
Carolinian  brutality,  to  that  of  Webster,  Benton,  Clay  or  Sumner  himself, 
until  in  extreme  cases,  like  Conkling,  it  became  Shakespearian  and  bouffe 
— as  Godkin  used  to  call  it, — like  Malvolio.  Sumner  had  become  dog 
matic  like  the  rest,  but  he  had  at  least  the  merit  of  qualities  that  warranted 
dogmatism.  He  justly  thought,  as  Webster  had  thought  before  him, 
that  his  great  services  and  sacrifices,  his  superiority  in  education,  his 
oratorical  power,  his  political  experience,  his  representative  character  at 
the  head  of  the  whole  New  England  contingent,  and,  above  all,  his 
knowledge  of  the  world,  made  him  the  most  important  member  of  the 
Senate ;  and  no  senator  had  ever  saturated  himself  more  thoroughly  with 
the  spirit  and  temper  of  the  body. 

Although  the  Senate  is  much  given  to  admiring  in  its  members  a 
superiority  less  obvious  or  quite  invisible  to  outsiders,  one  senator  seldom 
proclaims  his  own  inferiority  to  another,  and  still  more  seldom  likes  to  be 
told  of  it.  Even  the  greatest  senators  seemed  to  inspire  little  personal  affec 
tion  in  each  other,  and  betrayed  none  at  all.  Sumner  had  a  number  of  rivals 
who  held  his  judgment  in  no  high  esteem,  and  one  of  these  was  Senator 
Seward.  The  two  men  would  have  disliked  each  other  by  instinct  had  they 
lived  in  different  planets.  Each  was  created  only  for  exasperating  the  other  ; 
the  virtues  of  one  were  the  faults  of  his  rival,  until  no  good  quality 
seemed  to  remain  of  either.  That  the  public  service  must  suffer  was 
certain,  but  what  were  the  sufferings  of  the  public  service  compared  with 
the  risks  run  by  a  young  mosquito,  —  a  private  secretary  trying  to  buzz 
admiration  in  the  ears  of  each,  and  unaware  that  each  would  impatiently 
slap  at  him  for  belonging  to  the  other?  Innocent  and  unsuspicious 
beyond  what  was  permitted  even  in  a  nursery,  the  private  secretary 
courted  both. 

Private  secretaries  are  servants  of  a  rather  low  order,  whose  business 
is  to  serve  sources  of  power.  The  first  news  of  a  professional  kind, 
imparted  to  private  secretary  Adams  on  reaching  Washington,  was  that 
the  President-elect,  Abraham  Lincoln,  had  selected  Mr.  Seward  for  his 
Secretary  of  State,  and  that  Seward  was  to  be  the  medium  for  com 
municating  his  wishes  to  his  followers.  Every  young  man  naturally 
accepted  the  wishes  of  Mr.  Lincoln  as  orders,  the  more  because  he  could 


88  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

see  that  the  new  President  was  likely  to  need  all  the  help  that  several 
million  young  men  would  be  able  to  give,  if  they  counted  on  having 
any  President  at  all  to  serve.  Naturally  one  waited  impatiently  for  the 
first  meeting  with  the  new  Secretary  of  State. 

Governor  Seward  was  an  old  friend  of  the  family.  He  professed 
to  be  a  disciple  and  follower  of  John  Quincy  Adams.  He  had  been 
senator  since  1849,  when  his  responsibilities  as  leader  had  separated 
him  from  the  Free  Soil  contingent,  for,  in  the  dry  light  of  the  first  Free 
Soil  faith,  the  ways  of  New  York  politics  and  of  Thurlow  Weed  had  not 
won  favor ;  but  the  fierce  heat  which  welded  the  Republican  Party  in 
1856  melted  many  such  barriers,  and  when  Mr.  Adams  came  to  Congress 
in  December  1859,  Governor  Seward  instantly  renewed  his  attitude  of 
family  friend,  became  a  daily  intimate  in  the  household,  and  lost  no 
chance  of  forcing  his  fresh  ally  to  the  front. 

A  few  days 'after  their  arrival  in  December,  1860,  the  Governor,  as 
he  was  always  called,  came  to  dinner,  alone,  as  one  of  the  family,  and  the 
private  secretary  had  the  chance  he  wanted  to  watch  him  as  carefully  as  one 
generally  watches  men  who  dispose  of  one's  future.  A  slouching,  slender 
figure  ;  a  head  like  a  wise  macaw;  a  beaked  nose  ;  shaggy  eyebrows  ;  unorderly 
hair  and  clothes ;  hoarse  voice ;  off-hand  manner ;  free  talk,  and  perpetual 
cigar,  offered  a  new  type, —  of  western  New  York, — to  fathom  ;  a  type 
in  one  way  simple  because  it  was  only  double ;  —  political  and  personal ; 
but  complex  because  the  political  had  become  nature,  and  no  one  could  tell 
which  was  the  mask  and  which  the  features.  At  table,  among  friends, 
Mr.  Seward  threw  off  restraint,  or  seemed  to  throw  it  off,  in  reality,  while  in 
the  world  he  threw  it  off,  like  a  politician,  for  effect.  In  both  cases  he 
chose  to  appear  as  a  free  talker,  who  loathed  pomposity  and  enjoyed  a  joke ; 
but  how  much  was  nature  and  how  much  was  mask,  he  was  himself  too 
simple  a  nature  to  know.  Underneath  the  surface  he  was  conventional 
after  the  conventions  of  western  New  York  and  Albany.  Politicians 
thought  it  unconventionality.  Bostonians  thought  it  provincial.  Henry 
Adams  thought  it  charming.  From  the  first  sight,  he  loved  the 
Governor,  who,  though  sixty  years  old  had  the  youth  of  his  sympathies. 
He  noticed  that  Mr.  Seward  was  never  petty  or  personal ;  his  talk  was 
large;  he  generalised;  he  never  seemed  to  pose  for  statesmanship;  he  did  not 
require  an  attitude  of  prayer.  What  was  more  unusual, — almost  singular 


TREASON  89 

and  quite  eccentric, — he  had  some  means,  unknown  to  other  senators,  of 
producing  the  effect  of  unselfishness. 

Superficially  Mr.  Seward  and  Mr.  Adams  were  contrasts;  essentially 
they  were  much  alike.  Mr.  Adams  was  taken  to  be  rigid,  but  the  Puritan 
character  in  all  its  forms  could  be  supple  enough  when  it  chose  ;  and  in 
Massachusetts  all  the  Adamses  had  been  attacked  in  succession  as  no 
better  than  political  mercenaries.  Mr.  Hildreth,  in  his  standard  history, 
went  so  far  as  to  echo  with  approval  the  charge  that  treachery  was 
hereditary  in  the  family.  Any  Adams  had  at  least  to  be  thick-skinned, 
hardened  to  every  contradictory  epithet  that  virtue  could  supply,  and, 
on  the  whole,  armed  to  return  such  attentions ;  but  all  must  have 
admitted  that  they  had  invariably  subordinated  local  to  national  interests, 
and  would  continue  to  do  so,  whenever  forced  to  choose.  C.  F.  Adams 
was  sure  to  do  what  his  father  had  done,  as  his  father  had  followed  the 
steps  of  John  Adams,  and  no  doubt  thereby  earned  his  epithets.  The 
reproach  came  always  from  State  Street. 

The  inevitable  followed,  as  a  child  fresh  from  the  nursery  should  have 
had  the  instinct  to  foresee,  but  the  young  man  on  the  edge  of  life  never 
dreamed.  What  motives  or  emotions  drove  his  masters  on  their  various 
paths  he  made  no  pretence  of  guessing ;  even  at  that  age  he  preferred  to 
admit  his  dislike  for  guessing  motives;  he  knew  only  his  own  infantile 
ignorance,  before  which  he  stood  amazed,  and  his  innocent  good-faith, 
always  matter  of  simple-minded  surprise.  Critics  who  know  ultimate  truth 
will  pronounce  judgment  on  history  ;  all  that  Henry  Adams  ever  saw  in 
man  was  a  reflection  of  his  own  ignorance,  and  he  never  saw  quite  so  much 
of  it  as  in  the  winter  of  1860-61.  Everyone  knows  the  story ;  everyone 
draws  what  conclusion  suits  his  temper,  and  the  conclusion  matters  now 
less  than  though  it  concerned  the  merits  of  Adam  and  Eve  in  the 
Garden  of  Eden ;  but  in  1861  the  conclusion  made  the  sharpest  lesson 
of  life ;  it  was  condensed  and  concentrated  education. 

Kightly  or  wrongly  the  new  President  and  his  chief  advisers  in 
Washington  decided  that,  before  they  could  administer  the  government, 
they  must  make  sure  of  a  government  to  administer,  and  that  this  chance 
depended  on  the  action  of  Virginia.  The  whole  ascendency  of  the  winter 
wavered  between  the  effort  of  the  cotton  States  to  drag  Virginia  out, 
and  the  effort  of  the  new  President  to  keep  Virginia  in.  Governor 


90  THE  EDUCATION  OP  HENRY  ADAMS 

Seward  representing  the  administration  in  the  Senate  took  the  lead; 
Mr.  Adams  took  the  lead  in  the  House ;  and  as  far  as  a  private  secretary 
knew,  the  party  united  on  its  tactics.  In  offering  concessions  to  the 
border  States,  they  had  to  run  the  risk,  or  incur  the  certainty,  of 
dividing  their  own  party,  and  they  took  this  risk  with  open  eyes.  As 
Seward  himself,  in  his  gruff  way,  said  at  dinner,  after  Mr.  Adams  and 
he  had  made  their  speeches : — "  If  there's  no  secession  now,  you  and  I  are 
ruined." 

They  won  their  game ;  this  was  their  affair  and  the  affair  of  the 
historians  who  tell  their  story ;  their  private  secretaries  had  nothing  to 
do  with  it  except  to  follow  their  orders.  On  that  side  a  secretary 
learned  nothing  and  had  nothing  to  learn.  The  sudden  arrival  of  Mr. 
Lincoln  in  Washington  on  February  23,  and  the  language  of  his 
inaugural  address,  were  the  final  term  of  the  winter's  tactics,  and  closed 
the  private  secretary's  interest  in  the  matter  forever.  Perhaps  he  felt, 
even  then,  a  good  deal  more  interest  in  the  appearance  of  another  private 
secretary,  of  his  own  age,  a  young  man  named  John  Hay,  who  lighted 
on  La  Fayette  Square  at  the  same  moment.  Friends  are  born,  not  made, 
and  Henry  never  mistook  a  friend  except  when  in  power.  From  the 
first  slight  meeting  in  February  and  March,  1861,  he  recognised  Hay 
as  a  friend,  and  never  lost  sight  of  him  at  the  future  crossing  of 
their  paths ;  but,  for  the  moment,  his  own  task  ended  on  March  4  when 
Hay's  began.  The  winter's  anxieties  were  shifted  upon  new  shoulders, 
and  Henry  gladly  turned  back  to  Blackstone.  He  had  tried  to  make 
himself  useful,  and  had  exerted  energy  that  seemed  to  him  portentous, 
acting  in  secret  as  newspaper  correspondent,  cultivating  a  large  acquain 
tance  and  even  haunting  ball-rooms  where  the  simple,  old-fashioned,  southern 
tone  was  pleasant  even  in  the  atmosphere  of  conspiracy  and  treason. 
The  sum  was  next  to  nothing  for  education,  because  no  one  could  teach ; 
all  were  as  ignorant  as  himself;  none  knew  what  should  be  done, 
or  how  to  do  it ;  all  were  trying  to  learn,  and  were  more  bent  on  asking 
than  on  answering  questions.  The  mass  of  ignorance  in  Washington 
was  lighted  up  by  no  ray  of  knowledge.  Society,  from  top  to  bottom, 
broke  down. 

From  this  law  there  was  no  exception,   unless,  perhaps,   that  of  old 
General   Winfield   Scott,   who   happened   to   be   the   only   military    figure 


TREASON  91 

that  looked  equal  to  the  crisis.  No  one  else  either  looked  it,  or  was  it, 
or  could  be  it,  by  nature  or  training.  Had  young  Adams  been  told  that 
his  life  was  to  hang  on  the  correctness  of  his  estimate  of  the  new  President, 
he  would  have  lost.  He  saw  Mr.  Lincoln  but  once ;  at  the  melancholy 
function  called  an  Inaugural  Ball.  Of  course  he  looked  anxiously  for  a 
sign  of  character.  He  saw  a  long,  awkward  figure ;  a  plain,  ploughed 
face ;  a  mind,  absent  in  part,  and  in  part  evidently  worried  by  white 
kid  gloves ;  features  that  expressed  neither  self-satisfaction  nor  any  other 
familiar  Americanism,  but  rather  the  same  painful  sense  of  becoming 
educated  and  of  needing  education  that  tormented  a  private  secretary ; 
above  all  a  lack  of  apparent  force.  Any  private  secretary  in  the  least 
fit  for  his  business  would  have  thought,  as  Adams  did,  that  no  man  living 
needed  so  much  education  as  the  new  President  but  that  all  the 
education  he  could  get  would  not  be  enough. 

As  far  as  a  young  man  of  anxious  temperament  could  see,  no  one 
in  Washington  was  fitted  for  his  duties;  or  rather,  no  duties  in  March 
were  fitted  for  the  duties  in  April.  The  few  people  who  thought  they 
knew  something  were  more  in  error  than  those  who  knew  nothing. 
Education  was  matter  of  life  and  death,  but  all  the  education  in  the 
world  would  have  helped  nothing.  Only  one  man  in  Adams's  reach 
seemed  to  him  supremely  fitted  by  knowledge  and  experience  to  be  an 
adviser  and  friend.  This  was  Senator  Sumner ;  and  there  in  fact,  the 
young  man's  education  began ;  there  it  ended. 

Going  over  the  experience  again,  long  after  all  the  great  actors  were 
dead,  he  struggled  to  see  where  he  had  blundered.  In  the  effort  to  make 
acquaintances,  he  lost  friends,  but  he  would  have  liked  much  to  know 
whether  he  could  have  helped  it.  He  had  necessarily  followed  Seward 
and  his  father ;  he  took  for  granted  that  his  business  was  obedience, 
discipline,  and  silence ;  he  supposed  the  party  to  require  it,  and  that  the 
crisis  overruled  all  personal  doubts.  He  was  thunderstruck  to  learn  that 
Senator  Sumner  privately  denounced  the  course,  regarded  Mr.  Adams 
as  betraying  the  principles  of  his  life,  and  broke  off  relations  with  his 
family. 

Many  a  shock  was  Henry  Adams  to  meet  in  the  course  of  a  long  life 
passed  chiefly  near  politics  and  politicians,  but  the  profoundest  lessons 
are  not  the  lessons  of  reason ;  they  are  sudden  strains  that  permanently 


92  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

warp  the  mind.  He  cared  little  or  nothing  about  the  point  in  discussion  ; 
he  was  even  willing  to  admit  that  Sumner  might  be  right,  though  in  all 
great  emergencies  he  commonly  found  that  everyone  was  more  or  less 
wrong ;  he  liked  lofty  moral  principle  and  cared  little  for  political  tactics ; 
he  felt  a  profound  respect  for  Sumner  himself;  but  the  shock  opened  a 
chasm  in  life  that  never  closed,  and  as  long  as  life  lasted,  he  found  himself 
invariably  taking  for  granted,  as  a  political  instinct,  without  waiting 
further  experiment, — as  he  took  for  granted  that  arsenic  poisoned, — the 
rule  that  a  friend  in  power  is  a  friend  lost. 

On  his  own  score,  he  never  admitted  the  rupture,  and  never  ex 
changed  a  word  with  Mr.  Sumner  on  the  subject,  then  or  afterwards,  but 
his  education  —  for  good  or  bad, — made  an  enormous  stride.  One  has 
to  deal  with  all  sorts  of  unexpected  morals  in  life,  and,  at  this  moment, 
he  was  looking  at  hundreds  of  southern  gentlemen  who  believed  themselves 
singularly  honest,  but  who  seemed  to  him  engaged  in  the  plainest  breach 
of  faith  and  the  blackest  secret  conspiracy,  yet  they  did  not  disturb  his 
education.  History  told  of  little  else;  and  not  one  rebel  defection — not 
even  Robert  E.  Lee's  —  cost  young  Adams  a  personal  pang ;  but  Sumner's 
struck  home. 

This,  then,  was  the  result  of  the  new  attempt  at  education,  down  to 
March  4,  1861 ;  this  was  all ;  and  frankly,  it  seemed  to  him  hardly  what 
he  wanted.  The  picture  of  Washington  in  March,  1861,  offered  education, 
but  not  the  kind  of  education  that  led  to  good.  The  process  that  Matthew 
Arnold  described  as  wandering  between  two  worlds,  one  dead,  the  other 
powerless  to  be  born,  helps  nothing.  Washington  was  a  dismal  school. 
Even  before  the  traitors  had  flown,  the  vultures  descended  on  it  in 
swarms  that  darkened  the  ground,  and  tore  the  carrion  of  political  patron 
age  into  fragments  and  gobbets  of  fat  and  lean,  on  the  very  steps  of  the 
White  House.  Not  a  man  there  knew  what  his  task  was  to  be,  or  was 
fitted  for  it ;  everyone  without  exception,  northern  or  southern,  was  to  learn 
his  business  at  the  cost  of  the  public.  Lincoln,  Seward,  Sumner  and 
the  rest,  could  give  no  help  to  the  young  man  seeking  education ;  they 
knew  less  than  he ;  within  six  weeks  they  were  all  to  be  taught  their 
duties  by  the  uprising  of  such  as  he,  and  their  education  was  to  cost  a 
million  lives  and  ten  thousand  million  dollars,  more  or  less,  north  and 
south,  before  the  country  could  recover  its  balance  and  movement.  Henry 


TREASON  93 

was  a  helpless  victim,  and,  like  all  the  rest,  he  could  only  wait  for  he 
knew  not  what,  to  send  him  he  knew  not  where. 

With  the  close  of  the  session,  his  own  functions  ended.  Ceasing  to 
be  private  secretary  he  knew  not  what  else  to  do  hut  return  with  his 
father  and  mother  to  Boston  in  the  middle  of  March,  and,  with  childlike 
docility,  sit  down  at  a  desk  in  the  law-office  of  Horace  Gray  in  Court 
Street,  to  begin  again:  —  "My  Lords  and  Gentlemen;"  dosing  after  a 
two  o'clock  dinner,  or  waking  to  discuss  politics  with  the  future  Justice. 
There,  in  ordinary  times,  he  would  have  remained  for  life,  his  attempt 
at  education  in  treason  having,  like  all  the  rest,  disastrously  failed. 


CHAPTER    VIII 

1861 

Hardly  a  week  passed  when  the  newspapers  announced  that  President 
Lincoln  had  selected  Charles  Francis  Adams  as  his  minister  to  England. 
Once  more,  silently,  Henry  put  Blackstone  back  on  its  shelf.  As  Friar 
Bacon's  head  sententiously  announced  many  centuries  before : — Time 
had  passed !  The  Civil  Law  lasted  a  brief  day ;  the  Common  Law  pro 
longed  its  shadowy  existence  for  a  week.  The  Law,  altogether,  as  path 
of  education,  vanished  in  April,  1861,  leaving  a  million  young  men 
planted  in  the  mud  of  a  lawless  world,  to  begin  a  new  life  without 
education  at  all.  They  asked  few  questions,  but  if  they  had  asked 
millions  they  would  have  got  no  answers.  No  one  could  help.  Looking 
back  on  this  moment  of  crisis,  nearly  fifty  years  afterwards,  one  could  only 
shake  one's  white  beard  in  silent  horror.  Mr.  Adams  once  more  intimated 
that  he  thought  himself  entitled  to  the  services  of  one  of  his  sons,  and  he 
indicated  Henry  as  the  only  one  who  could  be  spared  from  more  serious 
duties.  Henry  packed  his  trunk  again  without  a  word.  He  could  offer  no 
protest.  Ridiculous  as  he  knew  himself  about  to  be  in  his  new  role,  he 
was  less  ridiculous  than  his  betters.  He  was  at  least  no  public  official, 
like  the  thousands  of  improvised  Secretaries  and  Generals  who  crowded  their 
jealousies  and  intrigues  on  the  President.  He  was  not  a  vulture  of  carrion- 
patronage.  He  knew  that  his  father's  appointment  was  the  result  of 
Governor  Seward's  personal  friendship ;  he  did  not  then  know  that  Senator 
Summer  had  opposed  it,  or  the  reasons  which  Summer  alleged  for  thinking 
it  unfit;  but  he  could  have  supplied  proofs  enough  had  Summer  asked 
for  them,  the  strongest  and  most  decisive  being  that,  in  his  opinion,  Mr. 
Adams  had  chosen  a  private  secretary  far  more  unfit  than  his  chief. 
94 


DIPLOMACY  95 

That  Mr.  Adams  was  unfit  might  well  be,  since  it  was  hard  to  find  a 
fit  appointment  in  the  list  of  possible  candidates,  except  Mr.  Sumner 
himself;  and  no  one  knew  so  well  as  this  experienced  senator  that  the 
weakest  of  all  Mr.  Adams's  proofs  of  fitness  was  his  consent  to  quit  a  safe 
seat  in  Congress  for  an  exceedingly  unsafe  seat  in  London  with  no  better  sup 
port  than  Senator  Sumner,  at  the  head  of  the  Foreign  Relations  Committee, 
was  likely  to  give  him.  In  the  family  history,  its  members  had  taken 
many  a  dangerous  risk,  but  never  before  had  they  taken  one  so  desperate. 

The  private  secretary  troubled  himself  not  at  all  about  the  unfitness  of 
anyone ;  he  knew  too  little ;  and,  in  fact,  no  one,  except  perhaps  Mr. 
Sumner,  knew  more.  The  President  and  Secretary  of  State  knew  least 
of  all.  As  Secretary  of  Legation  the  Executive  appointed  the  editor  of  a 
Chicago  newspaper  who  had  applied  for  the  Chicago  Post  Office ;  a  good 
fellow,  universally  known  as  Charley  Wilson,  who  had  not  a  thought  of 
staying  in  the  post,  or  of  helping  the  Minister.  The  Assistant  Secretary 
was  inherited  from  Buchanan's  time,  a  hard  worker  but  socially  useless. 
Mr.  Adams  made  no  effort  to  find  efficient  help ;  perhaps  he  knew  no 
name  to  suggest ;  perhaps  he  knew  too  much  of  Washington ;  but  he 
could  hardly  have  hoped  to  find  a  staff  of  strength  in  his  son. 

The  private  secretary  was  more  passive  than  his  father,  for  he  knew 
not  where  to  turn.  Sumner  alone  could  have  smoothed  his  path  by  giving 
him  letters  of  introduction,  but  if  Sumner  wrote  letters,  it  was  not 
with  the  effect  of  smoothing  paths.  No  one,  at  that  moment,  was 
engaged  in  smoothing  either  paths  or  people.  The  private  secretary  was  no 
worse  off  than  his  neighbors  except  in  being  called  earlier  into  service. 
On  April  13  the  storm  burst  and  rolled  several  hundred  thousand  young 
men  like  Henry  Adams  into  the  surf  of  a  wild  ocean,  all  helpless  like  him 
self,  to  be  beaten  about  for  four  years  by  the  waves  of  war.  Adams  still 
had  time  to  watch  the  regiments  form  ranks  before  Boston  State  House 
in  the  April  evenings  and  march  southward,  quietly  enough,  with  the 
air  of  business  they  wore  from  their  cradles,  but  with  few  signs  or 
sounds  of  excitement.  He  had  time  also  to  go  down  the  harbor  to  see 
his  brother  Charles  quartered  in  Fort  Independence  before  being  thrown, 
with  a  hundred  thousand  more,  into  the  furnace  of  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac  to  get  educated  in  a  fury  of  fire.  Few  things  were  for 
the  moment  so  trivial  in  importance  as  the  solitary  private  secretary 


96  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

crawling  down  to  the  wretched  old  Cunard  steamer  "  Niagara "  at  East 
Boston  to  start  again  for  Liverpool.  This  time  the  pitcher  of  education 
had  gone  to  the  fountain  once  too  often  ;  it  was  fairly  broken ;  and  the 
young  man  had  got  to  meet  a  hostile  world  without  defense, — or  arms. 

The  situation  did  not  seem  even  comic,  so  ignorant  was  the  world 
of  its  humors,  yet  Minister  Adams  sailed  for  England,  May  1,  1861, 
with  much  the  same  outfit  as  Admiral  Dupont  would  have  enjoyed  if  the 
government  had  sent  him  to  attack  Port  Royal  with  one  cabin-boy  in  a 
row-boat.  Luckily  for  the  cabin-boy,  he  was  alone.  Had  Secretary 
Seward  and  Senator  Sumner  given  to  Mr.  Adams  the  rank  of  Ambassa 
dor  and  four  times  his  salary ;  a  palace  in  London ;  a  staff  of  trained 
Secretaries,  and  personal  letters  of  introduction  to  the  royal  family  and 
the  whole  peerage,  the  private  secretary  would  have  been  cabin-boy  still, 
with  the  extra  burden  of  many  masters ;  he  was  the  most  fortunate 
person  in  the  party,  having  for  master  only  his  father  who  never  fretted, 
never  dictated,  never  disciplined,  and  whose  idea  of  American  diplomacy 
was  that  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Minister  Adams  remembered  how 
his  grandfather  had  sailed  from  Mount  Wollaston  in  midwinter,  1778, 
on  the  little  frigate  "  Boston,"  taking  his  eleven-year-old  son  John 
Quincy  with  him,  for  secretary,  on  a  diplomacy  of  adventure  that  had 
hardly  a  parallel  for  success.  He  remembered  how  John  Quincy,  in 
1809,  had  sailed  for  Russia,  with  himself,  a  baby  of  two  years  old,  to 
cope  with  Napoleon  and  the  Czar  Alexander  single-handed,  almost  as 
much  of  an  adventurer  as  John  Adams  before  him,  and  almost  as 
successful.  He  thought  it  natural  that  the  government  should  send  him 
out  as  an  adventurer  also,  with  a  twenty-three-year-old  son,  and  he  did 
not  even  notice  that  he  left  not  a  friend  behind  him.  No  doubt  he 
could  depend  on  Seward,  but  on  whom  could  Seward  depend  ?  Certainly 
not  on  the  Chairman  of  the  Committee  of  Foreign  Relations.  Minister 
Adams  had  no  friend  in  the  Senate;  he  could  hope  for  no  favors,  and 
he  asked  none.  He  thought  it  right  to  play  the  adventurer  as  his  father 
and  grandfather  had  done  before  him,  without  a  murmur.  This  was 
a  lofty  view,  and  for  him  answered  his  objects,  but  it  bore  hard  on 
cabin-boys,  and  when,  in  time,  the  young  man  realised  what  had 
happened,  he  felt  it  as  a  betrayal.  He  modestly  thought  himself  unfit 
for  the  career  of  adventurer,  and  judged  his  father  to  be  less  fit  than 


DIPLOMACY  97 

himself.  For  the  first  time  America  was  posing  as  the  champion  of 
legitimacy  and  order.  Her  representatives  should  know  how  to  play 
their  role  ;  they  should  wear  the  costume ;  but,  in  the  mission  attached 
to  Mr.  Adams  in  1861,  the  only  rag  of  legitimacy  or  order  was  the 
private  secretary ;  whose  stature  was  not  sufficient  to  impose  awe  on  the 
Court  and  Parliament  of  Great  Britain. 

One  inevitable  effect  of  this  lesson  was  to  make  a  victim  of  the  scholar 
and  to  turn  him  into  a  harsh  judge  of  his  masters.  If  they  overlooked 
him,  he  could  hardly  overlook  them,  since  they  stood  with  their  whole 
weight  on  his  body.  By  way  of  teaching  him  quickly,  they  sent  out 
their  new  minister  to  Russia  in  the  same  ship.  Secretary  Seward  had 
occasion  to  learn  the  merits  of  Cassius  M.  Clay  in  the  diplomatic  service, 
but  Mr.  Seward's  education  profited  less  than  the  private  secretary's, 
Cassius  Clay  as  a  teacher  having  no  equal  though  possibly  some  rivals. 
No  young  man,  not  in  government  pay,  could  be  asked  to  draw,  from 
such  lessons,  any  confidence  in  himself,  and  it  was  notorious  that,  for  the 
next  two  years,  the  persons  were  few  indeed  who  felt,  or  had  reason 
to  feel,  any  sort  of  confidence  in  the  government ;  fewest  of  all  among 
those  who  were  in  it.  At  home,  for  the  most  part,  young  men  went  to 
the  war,  grumbled  and  died ;  in  England  they  might  grumble  or  not ; 
no  one  listened. 

Above  all,  the  private  secretary  could  not  grumble  to  his  chief.  He 
knew  surprisingly  little,  but  that  much  he  did  know.  He  never  labored 
so  hard  to  learn  a  language  as  he  did  to  hold  his  tongue  and  it  affected 
him  for  life.  The  habit  of  reticence, — of  talking  without  meaning, — is 
never  effaced.  He  had  to  begin  it  at  once.  He  was  already  an  adept 
when  the  party  landed  at  Liverpool,  May  13,  1861,  and  went  instantly 
up  to  London ;  a  family  of  early  Christian  martyrs  about  to  be  flung 
into  an  arena  of  lions,  under  the  glad  eyes  of  Tiberius  Palmerston. 
Though  Lord  Palmerston  would  have  laughed  his  peculiar  Palmerston 
laugh  at  figuring  as  Tiberius,  he  would  have  seen  only  evident  resemblance 
in  the  Christian  martyrs,  for  he  had  already  arranged  the  ceremony. 

Of  what  they  had  to  expect,  the  Minister  knew  no  more  than  his 

son.      What  he  or  Mr.  Seward  or  Mr.  Sumner  may  have  thought  is  the 

affair  of  history  and  their  errors  concern    historians.      The   errors    of  a 

private  secretary  concerned  no  one  but  himself,  and  were  a  large  part  of 

7 


98  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENEY  ADAMS 

his  education.  He  thought  on  May  12  that  he  was  going  to  a  friendly 
government  and  people,  true  to  the  anti-slavery  principles  which  had 
been  their  steadiest  profession.  For  a  hundred  years  the  chief  effort  of 
his  family  had  aimed  at  bringing  the  government  of  England  into 
intelligent  cooperation  with  the  objects  and  interests  of  America.  His 
father  was  about  to  make  a  new  effort,  and  this  time  the  chance  of  success 
was  promising.  The  slave  States  had  been  the  chief  apparent  obstacle 
to  good  understanding.  As  for  the  private  secretary  himself,  he  was, 
like  all  Bostonians,  instinctively  English.  He  could  not  conceive  the 
idea  of  a  hostile  England.  He  supposed  himself,  as  one  of  the  members 
of  a  famous  anti-slavery  family,  to  be  welcome  everywhere  in  the  British 
Islands. 

On  May  13,  he  met  the  official  announcement  that  England  recog 
nised  the  belligerency  of  the  Confederacy.  This  beginning  of  a  new 
education  tore  up  by  the  roots  nearly  all  that  was  left  of  Harvard  College 
and  Germany.  He  had  to  learn, — the  sooner  the  better, — that  his 
ideas  were  the  reverse  of  truth ;  that  in  May,  1861,  no  one  in  England, 
— literally  no  one,  —  doubted  tkat  Jefferson  Davis  had  made  or  would 
make  a  nation,  and  nearly  all  were  glad  of  it,  though  not  often  saying 
so.  They  mostly  imitated  Palmerston,  who,  according  to  Mr.  Gladstone, 
"  desired  the  severance  as  a  diminution  of  a  dangerous  power,  but  prudently 
held  his  tongue."  The  sentiment  of  anti-slavery  had  disappeared.  Lord 
John  Russell,  as  Foreign  Secretary,  had  received  the  rebel  emissaries, 
and  had  decided  to  recognise  their  belligerency  before  the  arrival  of  Mr. 
Adams  in  order  to  fix  the  position  of  the  British  Government  in  advance. 
The  recognition  of  independence  would  then  become  an  understood  policy ; 
a  matter  of  time  and  occasion. 

Whatever  Minister  Adams  may  have  felt,  the  first  effect  of  this  shock 
upon  his  son  produced  only  a  dulness  of  comprehension, — a  sort  of  hazy 
inability  to  grasp  the  missile  or  realise  the  blow.  Yet  he  realised  that 
to  his  father  it  was  likely  to  be  fatal.  The  chances  were  great  that  the 
whole  family  would  turn  round  and  go  home  within  a  few  weeks.  The 
horizon  widened  out  in  endless  waves  of  confusion.  When  he  thought 
over  the  subject  in  the  long  leisure  of  later  life,  he  grew  cold  at  the  idea 
of  his  situation  had  his  father  then  shown  himself  what  Sumner  thought 
him  to  be — unfit  for  his  post.  That  the  private  secretary  was  unfit  for 


DIPLOMACY  99 

his, — trifling  though  it  were, — was  proved  by  his  unreflecting  confidence 
in  his  father.  It  never  entered  his  mind  that  his  father  might  lose  his 
nerve  or  his  temper,  and  yet  in  a  subsequent  knowledge  of  statesmen 
and  diplomates  extending  over  several  generations,  he  could  not  certainly 
point  out  another  who  could  have  stood  such  a  shock  without  showing 
it.  He  passed  this  long  day,  and  tedious  journey  to  London,  without 
once  thinking  of  the  possibility  that  his  father  might  make  a  mistake. 
Whatever  the  minister  thought,  and  certainly  his  thought  was  not  less 
active  than  his  son's,  he  showed  no  trace  of  excitement.  His  manner 
was  the  same  as  ever ;  his  mind  and  temper  were  as  perfectly  balanced ; 
not  a  word  escaped ;  not  a  nerve  twitched. 

The  test  was  final,  for  no  other  shock  so  violent  and  sudden  could 
possibly  recur.  The  worst  was  in  full  sight.  For  once  the  private 
secretary  knew  his  own  business,  which  was  to  imitate  his  father  as  closely 
as  possible  and  hold  his  tongue.  Dumped  thus  into  Maurigy's  Hotel 
at  the  foot  of  Regent  Street,  in  the  midst  of  a  London  season,  without 
a  friend  or  even  an  acquaintance,  he  preferred  to  laugh  at  his  father's 
bewilderment  before  the  waiter's  "  amhandheggsir "  for  breakfast,  rather 
than  ask  a  question  or  express  a  doubt.  His  situation,  if  taken  seriously, 
was  too  appalling  to  face.  Had  he  known  it  better,  he  would  only  have 
thought  it  worse. 

Politically  or  socially,  the  outlook  was  desperate,  beyond  retrieving 
or  contesting.  Socially,  under  the  best  of  circumstances,  a  new  comer 
in  London  society  needs  years  to  establish  a  position,  and  Minister 
Adams  had  not  a  week  or  an  hour  to  spare,  while  his  son  had  not  even 
a  remote  chance  of  beginning.  Politically  the  prospect  looked  even  worse, 
and  for  Secretary  Seward  and  Senator  Sumner  it  was  so ;  but  for  the 
Minister,  on  the  spot,  as  he  came  to  realise  exactly  where  he  stood,  the 
danger  was  not  so  imminent.  Mr.  Adams  was  always  one  of  the  luckiest 
of  men,  both  in  what  he  achieved  and  in  what  he  escaped.  The  blow, 
which  prostrated  Seward  and  Sumner,  passed  over  him.  Lord  John 
Russell  had  acted,  —  had  probably  intended  to  act,  —  kindly  by  him  in 
forestalling  his  arrival.  The  blow  must  have  fallen  within  three  months, 
and  would  then  have  broken  him  down.  The  British  ministers  were  a 
little  in  doubt  still, — a  little  ashamed  of  themselves,  —  and  certain  to 
wait  the  longer  for  their  next  step  in  proportion  to  the  haste  of  their  first. 


100  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

This  is  not  a  story  of  the  diplomatic  adventures  of  Charles  Francis 
Adams  but  of  his  son  Henry's  adventures  in  search  of  an  education, 
which  if  not  taken  too  seriously,  tended  to  humor.  The  father's  position 
in  London  was  not  altogether  bad ;  the  son's  was  absurd.  Thanks  to 
certain  family  associations,  Charles  Francis  Adams  naturally  looked  on 
all  British  ministers  as  enemies  ;  the  only  public  occupation  of  all  Adamses 
for  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  at  least,  in  their  brief  intervals  of  quarrelling 
with  State  Street,  had  been  to  quarrel  with  Downing  Street;  and  the 
British  government,  well  used  to  a  liberal  unpopularity  abroad,  even 
when  officially  rude  liked  to  be  personally  civil.  All  diplomatic  agents 
are  liable  to  be  put,  so  to  speak,  in  a  corner,  and  are  none  the  worse  for 
it.  Minister  Adams  had  nothing  in  especial  to  complain  of;  his  position 
was  good  while  it  lasted,  and  he  had  only  the  chances  of  war  to  fear. 
The  son  had  no  such  compensations.  Brought  over  in  order  to  help 
his  father,  he  could  conceive  no  way  of  rendering  his  father  help,  but  he 
was  clear  that  his  father  had  got  to  help  him.  To  him,  the  legation 
was  social  ostracism,  terrible  beyond  anything  he  had  known.  Entire 
solitude  in  the  great  society  of  London  was  doubly  desperate  because  his 
duties  as  private  secretary  required  him  to  know  everybody  and  go  with 
his  father  and  mother  everywhere  they  needed  escort.  He  had  no  friend, 
or  even  enemy,  to  tell  him  to  be  patient.  Had  anyone  done  it,  he  would 
surely  have  broken  out  with  the  reply  that  patience  was  the  last  resource 
of  fools  as  well  as  of  sages ;  if  he  was  to  help  his  father  at  all,  he  must 
do  it  at  once,  for  his  father  would  never  so  much  need  help  again.  In 
fact  he  never  gave  his  father  the  smallest  help,  unless  it  were  as  a  foot 
man,  a  clerk,  or  a  companion  for  the  younger  children. 

He  found  himself  in  a  singular  situation  for  one  who  was  to  be 
useful.  As  he  came  to  see  the  situation  closer,  he  began  to  doubt  whether 
secretaries  were  meant  to  be  useful.  Wars  were  too  common  in  diplomacy 
to  disturb  the  habits  of  the  diplomate.  Most  secretaries  detested  their 
chiefs,  and  wished  to  be  anything  but  useful.  At  the  St.  James's  Club, 
to  which  the  minister's  son  could  go  only  as  an  invited  guest,  the  most 
instructive  conversation  he  ever  heard  among  the  young  men  of  his  own 
age  who  hung  about  the  tables,  more  helpless  than  himself,  was :  — "  Quel 
chien  de  pays!"  or:  — "  Que  tu  es  beau  aujourdhui,  mon  cher ! "  No 
one  wanted  to  discuss  affairs ;  still  less  to  give  or  get  information.  That 


DIPLOMACY  101 

was  the  affair  of  their  chiefs,  who  were  also  slow  to  assume  work  not 
specially  ordered  from  their  courts.  If  the  American  minister  was  in 
trouble  today,  the  Russian  Ambassador  was  in  trouble  yesterday,  and 
the  Frenchman  would  be  in  trouble  to-morrow.  It  would  all  come  in 
the  day's  work.  There  was  nothing  professional  in  worry.  Empires 
were  always  tumbling  to  pieces  and  diplomates  were  always  picking 
them  up. 

This  was  his  whole  diplomatic  education,  except  that  he  found  rich 
veins  of  jealousy  running  between  every  chief  and  his  staff.  His  social 
education  was  more  barren  still,  and  more  trying  to  his  vanity.  His 
little  mistakes  in  etiquette  or  address  made  him  writhe  with  torture. 
He  never  forgot  the  first  two  or  three  social  functions  he  attended : — one 
an  afternoon  at  Miss  Burdett  Coutts'  in  Stratton  Place,  where  he  hid 
himself  in  the  embrasure  of  a  window  and  hoped  that  no  one  noticed  him  ; 
Mother  was  a  garden-party  given  by  the  old  anti-slavery  Duchess  Dowager 
of  Sutherland  at  Chiswick,  where  the  American  Minister  and  Mrs.  Adams 
were  kept  in  conversation  by  the  old  Duchess  till  everyone  else  went 
away  except  the  young  Duke  and  his  cousins  who  set  to  playing  leap-frog 
on  the  lawn.  At  intervals  during  the  next  thirty  years  Henry  Adams 
continued  to  happen  upon  the  Duke,  who,  singularly  enough,  was  always 
playing  leap-frog.  Still  another  nightmare  he  suffered  at  a  dance  given 
by  the  old  Duchess  Dowager  of  Somerset,  a  terrible  vision  in  castanets, 
who  seized  him  and  forced  him  to  perform  a  highland  fling  before  the 
assembled  nobility  and  gentry,  with  the  daughter  of  the  Turkish  Am 
bassador  for  partner.  This  might  seem  humorous  to  some,  but  to  him 
the  world  turned  ashes. 

When  the  end  of  the  season  came,  the  private  secretary  had  not 
yet  won  a  private  acquaintance,  and  he  hugged  himself  in  his  solitude 
when  the  story  of  the  battle  of  Bull  Run  appeared  in  the  Times.  He 
felt  only  the  wish  to  be  more  private  than  ever,  for  Bull  Run  was  a 
worse  diplomatic  than  military  disaster.  All  this  is  history  and  can 
be  read  by  public  schools  if  they  choose ;  but  the  curious  and  unexpected 
happened  to  the  Legation,  for  the  effect  of  Bull  Run  on  them  was  almost 
strengthening.  They  no  longer  felt  doubt.  For  the  next  year  they  went 
on  only  from  week  to  week,  ready  to  leave  England  at  once,  and  never 
assuming  more  than  three  months  for  their  limit.  Europe  was  waiting 
to  see  them  go.  So  certain  was  the  end  that  no  one  cared  to  hurry  it. 


102  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

So  far  as  a  private  secretary  could  see,  this  was  all  that  saved  his 
father.  For  many  months  he  looked  on  himself  as  lost  or  finished  in 
the  character  of  private  secretary ;  and  as  about  to  begin,  without  further 
experiment,  a  final  education  in  the  ranks  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac 
where  he  would  find  most  of  his  friends  enjoying  a  much  pleasanter  life 
than  his  own.  With  this  idea  uppermost  in  his  mind,  he  passed  the 
summer  and  the  autumn,  and  began  the  winter.  Any  winter  in  London 
is  a  severe  trial ;  one's  first  winter  is  the  most  trying ;  but  the  month 
of  December,  1861,  in  Mansfield  Street,  Portland  Place,  would  have 
gorged  a  glutton  of  gloom. 

One  afternoon  when  he  was  struggling  to  resist  complete  nervous 
depression  in  the  solitude  of  Mansfield  Street,  during  the  absence  of 
the  Minister  and  Mrs.  Adams  on  a  country  visit,  Renter's  telegram 
announcing  the  seizure  of  Mason  and  Slidell  from  a  British  mail-steamer 
was  brought  to  the  office.  All  three  Secretaries,  public  and  private 
were  there,  —  nervous  as  wild  beasts  under  the  long  strain  on  their  endur 
ance — and  all  three,  though  they  knew  it  to  be  not  merely  their  order 
of  departure, — not  merely  diplomatic  rupture,  —  but  a  declaration  of 
war,  —  broke  into  shouts  of  delight.  They  were  glad  to  face  the  end. 
They  saw  it  and  cheered  it !  Since  England  was  waiting  only  for  its 
own  moment  to  strike,  they  were  eager  to  strike  first. 

They  telegraphed  the  news  to  the  Minister  who  was  staying  with 
Monckton  Milnes  at  Fryston  in  Yorkshire.  How  Mr.  Adams  took  it, 
is  told  in  the  Lives  of  Lord  Houghton  and  William  E.  Forster  who  was 
one  of  the  Fryston  party.  The  moment  was  for  him  the  crisis  of  his 
diplomatic  career ;  for  the  secretaries  it  was  merely  the  beginning  of 
another  intolerable  delay,  as  though  they  were  a  military  outpost  waiting 
orders  to  quit  an  abandoned  position.  At  the  moment  of  sharpest  sus 
pense,  the  Prince  Consort  sickened  and  died.  Portland  Place  at  Christmas 
in  a  black  fog  was  never  a  rosy  landscape,  but  in  1861  the  most  hardened 
Londoner  lost  his  ruddiness.  The  private  secretary  had  one  source  of 
comfort  denied  to  them: — he  should  not  be  private  secretary  long. 

He  was  mistaken — of  course!  he  had  been  mistaken  at  every  point 
of  his  education,  and,  on  this  point,  he  kept  up  the  same  mistake  for 
nearly  seven  years  longer,  always  deluded  by  the  notion  that  the  end 
was  near.  To  him  the  Trent  Affair  was  nothing  but  one  of  many  affairs 


DIPLOMACY  103 

which  he  had  to  copy  in  a  delicate  round  hand  into  his  books,  yet  it 
had  one  or  two  results  personal  to  him  which  left  no  trace  on  the  Legation 
records.  One  of  these,  and  to  him  the  most  important,  was  to  put  an 
end  forever  to  the  idea  of  being  "useful."  Hitherto,  as  an  independent 
and  free  citizen,  not  in  the  employ  of  the  government,  he  had  kept  up 
his  relations  with  the  American  press.  He  had  written  pretty  frequently 
to  Henry  J.  Raymond,  and  Raymond  had  used  his  letters  in  the  New 
York  Times.  He  had  also  become  fairly  intimate  with  the  two  or  three 
friendly  newspapers  in  London ;  the  Daily  News ;  the  Star ;  the  weekly 
Spectator  ;  and  he  had  tried  to  give  them  news  and  views  that  should 
have  a  certain  common  character,  and  prevent  clash.  He  had  even  gone 
down  to  Manchester  to  study  the  cotton-famine,  and  wrote  a  long  account 
of  his  visit  which  his  brother  Charles  had  published  in  the  Boston  Courier. 
Unfortunately  it  was  printed  with  his  name,  and  instantly  came  back 
upon  him  in  the  most  crushing  shape  possible:  —  that  of  a  long,  satirical 
leader  in  the  London  Times.  Luckily  the  Times  did  not  know  its  victim 
to  be  a  part,  though  not  an  official,  of  the  Legation,  and  lost  the  chance 
to  make  its  satire  fatal ;  but  he  instantly  learned  the  narrowness  of  his 
escape  from  old  Joe  Parkes,  one  of  the  traditional  busybodies  of  politics, 
who  had  haunted  London  since  1830,  and  who,  after  rushing  to  the  Times 
office,  to  tell  them  all  they  did  not  know  about  Henry  Adams,  rushed 
to  the  Legation  to  tell  Adams  all  he  did  not  want  to  know  about  the 
Times.  For  a  moment  Adams  thought  his  "  usefulness "  at  an  end  in 
other  respects  than  in  the  press,  but  a  day  or  two  more  taught  him  the 
value  of  obscurity.  He  was  totally  unknown ;  he  had  not  even  a  club  ; 
London  was  empty ;  no  one  thought  twice  about  the  Times  article ;  no 
one  except  Joe  Parkes  ever  spoke  of  it ;  and  the  world  had  other  persons 
— such  as  President  Lincoln,  Secretary  Seward  and  Commodore  Wilkes  — 
for  constant  and  favorite  objects  of  ridicule.  Henry  Adams  escaped, 
but  he  never  tried  to  be  useful  again.  The  Trent  Affair  dwarfed  in 
dividual  eifort.  His  education  at  least  had  reached  the  point  of  seeing 
its  own  proportions.  "  Surtout  point  de  zele ! "  Zeal  was  too  hasardous 
a  profession  for  a  Minister's  son  to  pursue,  as  a  volunteer  manipulator, 
among  Trent  Affairs  and  rebel  cruisers.  He  wrote  no  more  letters  and 
meddled  with  no  more  newspapers,  but  he  was  still  young,  and  felt 
unkindly  towards  the  editor  of  the  London  Times. 


104  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

Mr.  Delane  lost  few  opportunities  of  embittering  him,  and  he  felt 
little  or  no  hope  of  repaying  these  attentions ;  but  the  Trent  Affair  passed 
like  a  snow-storm,  leaving  the  Legation,  to  its  surprise,  still  in  place. 
Although  the  private  secretary  saw  in  this  delay,  —  which  he  attributed 
to  Mr.  Seward's  good  sense,  —  no  reason  for  changing  his  opinion  about 
the  views  of  the  British  government,  he  had  no  choice  but  to  sit  down 
again  at  his  table,  and  go  on  copying  papers,  filing  letters  and  reading 
newspaper  accounts  of  the  incapacity  of  Mr.  Lincoln  and  the  brutality 
of  Mr.  Seward, — or  vice  versa.  The  heavy  months  dragged  on  and 
winter  slowly  turned  to  spring  without  improving  his  position  or  spirits. 
Socially  he  had  but  one  relief;  and,  to  the  end  of  life,  he  never  forgot 
the  keen  gratitude  he  owed  for  it.  During  this  tedious  winter  and  for 
many  months  afterwards,  the  only  gleams  of  sunshine  were  on  the  days 
he  passed  at  Walton-on-Thames  as  the  guest  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Russell 
Sturgis  at  Mount  Felix. 

His  education  had  unfortunately  little  to  do  with  bankers,  although 
old  George  Peabody  and  his  partner,  Junius  Morgan,  were  strong  allies. 
Joshua  Bates  was  devoted,  and  no  one  could  be  kinder  than  Thomas 
Baring,  whose  little  dinners  in  Upper  Grosvenor  Street  were  certainly 
the  best  in  London ;  but  none  offered  a  refuge  to  compare  with 
Mount  Felix,  and,  for  the  first  time,  the  refuge  was  a  liberal  education. 
Mrs.  Russell  Sturgis  was  one  of  the  women  to  whom  an  intelligent  boy 
attaches  himself  as  closely  as  he  can.  Henry  Adams  was  not  a  very 
intelligent  boy,  and  he  had  no  knowledge  of  the  world,  but  he  knew 
enough  to  understand  that  a  cub  needed  shape.  The  kind  of  education 
he  most  required  was  that  of  a  charming  woman,  and  Mrs.  Russell 
Sturgis,  a  dozen  years  older  than  himself,  could  have  good-naturedly 
trained  a  school  of  such,  without  an  effort,  and  with  infinite  advantage 
to  them.  Near  her  he  half  forgot  the  anxieties  of  Portland  Place. 
During  two  years  of  miserable  solitude,  she  was  in  this  social  polar  winter, 
the  single  source  of  warmth  and  light. 

Of  course  the  Legation  itself  was  home,  and,  under  such  pressure, 
life  in  it  could  be  nothing  but  united.  All  the  inmates  made  common 
cause,  but  this  was  no  education.  One  lived,  but  was  merely  flayed 
alive.  Yet,  while  this  might  be  exactly  true  of  the  younger  members  of 
the  household,  it  was  not  quite  so  with  the  Minister  and  Mrs.  Adams. 


DIPLOMACY  105 

Very  slowly,  but  quite  steadily,  they  gained  foothold.  For  some  reason 
partly  connected  with  American  sources,  British  society  had  begun  with 
violent  social  prejudice  against  Lincoln,  Seward,  and  all  the  republican 
leaders  except  Summer.  Familiar  as  the  whole  tribe  of  Adamses  had 
been  for  three  generations  with  the  impenetrable  stupidity  of  the  British 
mind,  and  weary  of  the  long  struggle  to  teach  it  its  own  interests,  the 
fourth  generation  could  still  not  quite  persuade  itself  that  this  new 
British  prejudice  was  natural.  The  private  secretary  suspected  that 
Americans  in  New  York  and  Boston  had  something  to  do  with  it.  The 
copperhead  was  at  home  in  Pall  Mall.  Naturally  the  Englishman  was 
a  coarse  animal  and  liked  coarseness.  Had  Lincoln  find  Seward  been 
the  ruffians  supposed,  the  average  Englishman  would  have  liked  them 
the  better.  The  exceedingly  quiet  manner  and  the  unassailable  social 
position  of  Minister  Adams  in  no  way  conciliated  them.  They  chose  to 
ignore  him,  since  they  could  not  ridicule  him.  Lord  John  Russell  set 
the  example.  Personally  the  minister  was  to  be  kindly  treated ;  politi 
cally  he  was  negligeable ;  he  was  there  to  be  put  aside.  London  and 
Paris  imitated  Lord  John.  Everyone  waited  to  see  Lincoln  and  his 
hirelings  disappear  in  one  vast  debacle.  All  conceived  that  the  Wash 
ington  government  would  soon  crumble,  and  that  Minister  Adams  would 
vanish  with  the  rest. 

This  situation  made  Minister  Adams  an  exception  among  diplomates. 
European  rulers  for  the  most  part  fought  and  treated  as  members  of  one 
family,  and  rarely  had  in  view  the  possibility  of  total  extinction ;  but 
the  governments  and  society  of  Europe,  for  a  year  at  least,  regarded  the 
Washington  government  as  dead,  and  its  ministers  as  nullities.  Minister 
Adams  was  better  received  than  most  nullities  because  he  made  no  noise. 
Little  by  little,  in  private,  society  took  the  habit  of  accepting  him,  not 
so  much  as  a  diplomate  but  rather  as  a  member  of  opposition,  or  an 
eminent  counsel  retained  for  a  foreign  government.  He  was  to  be 
received  and  considered ;  to  be  cordially  treated  as,  by  birth  and 
manners,  one  of  themselves.  This  curiously  English  way  of  getting 
behind  a  stupidity  gave  the  minister  every  possible  advantage  over  a 
European  diplomate.  Barriers  of  race,  language,  birth,  habit,  ceased  to 
exist.  Diplomacy  held  diplomates  apart  in  order  to  save  governments, 
but  Earl  Russell  could  not  hold  Mr.  Adams  apart.  He  was  undistin- 


106  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

guishable  from  a  Londoner.  In  society,  few  Londoners  were  so  widely 
at  home.  None  had  such  double  personality  and  corresponding  double 
weight. 

The  singular  luck  that  took  him  to  Fryston  to  meet  the  shock  of 
the  Trent  Affair  under  the  sympathetic  eyes  of  Monckton  Milnes  and 
William  E.  Forster  never  afterwards  deserted  him.  Both  Milnes  and 
Forster  needed  support  and  were  greatly  relieved  to  be  supported.  They 
saw  what  the  private  secretary  in  May  had  overlooked,  the  hopeless 
position  they  were  in  if  the  American  Minister  made  a  mistake,  and, 
since  his  strength  was  theirs,  they  lost  no  time  in  expressing  to  all  the 
world  their  estimate  of  the  Minister's  character.  Between  them  the 
Minister  was  almost  safe. 

One  might  discuss  long  whether,  at  that  moment,  Milnes  or  Forster 
were  the  more  valuable  ally,  since  they  were  influences  of  different 
kinds.  Monckton  Milnes  was  a  social  power  in  London,  possibly  greater 
than  Londoners  themselves  quite  understood,  for  in  London  society  as 
elsewhere,  the  dull  and  the  ignorant  made  a  large  majority,  and  dull 
men  always  laughed  at  Monckton  Milnes.  Every  bore  was  used  to 
talk  familiarly  about  "Dicky  Milnes,"  the  "cool  of  the  evening"; 
his  appetite,  his  cayenne  pepper,  his  teeth  and  his  breakfasts ;  and  of 
course  he  himself  affected  social  eccentricity,  challenging  ridicule  with 
the  indifference  of  one  who  knew  himself  to  be  the  first  wit  in  London, 
and  a  maker  of  men — of  a  great  many  men.  A  word  from  him  went 
far.  An  invitation  to  his  breakfast-table  went  further.  Behind  his  almost 
Falstaffian  masque  and  laugh  of  Silenus,  he  carried  a  fine,  broad  and 
high  intelligence  which  no  one  questioned.  As  a  young  man  he  had 
written  verses,  which  some  readers  thought  poetry,  and  which  were  certainly 
not  altogether  prose.  Later,  in  Parliament  he  made  speeches,  chiefly 
criticised  as  too  good  for  the  place  and  too  high  for  the  audience. 
Socially,  he  was  one  of  two  or  three  men  who  went  everywhere,  knew 
everybody,  talked  of  everything  and  had  the  ear  of  ministers ;  but 
unlike  most  wits,  he  held  a  social  position  of  his  own  that  ended  in  a 
peerage,  and  he  had  a  house  in  Upper  Brook  Street  to  which  most 
clever  people  were  exceedingly  glad  of  admission.  His  breakfasts  were 
famous,  and  no  one  liked  to  decline  his  invitations,  for  it  was  more 
dangerous  to  show  timidity  than  to  risk  a  fray.  He  was  a  voracious 


DIPLOMACY  107 

reader,  a  strong  critic,  an  art-connoisseur  in  certain  directions,  a  col 
lector  of  books,  but  above  all  he  was  a  man  of  the  world  by  pro 
fession,  and  loved  the  contacts  —  perhaps  the  collisions  —  of  society. 
Not  even  Henry  Brougham  dared  do  the  things  he  did,  yet  Brougham 
defied  rebuff.  Milnes  was  the  goodnature  of  London ;  the  Gargantuan 
type  of  its  refinement  and  coarseness ;  the  most  universal  figure  of  May 
Fair. 

Compared  with  him,  figures  like  Heyward,  or  Delane,  or  Venables, 
or  Henry  Reeve  were  quite  secondary,  but  William  E.  Forster  stood  in 
a  different  class.  Forster  had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  May  Fair. 
Except  in  being  a  Yorkshireman  he  was  quite  the  opposite  of  Milnes. 
He  had  at  that  time  no  social  or  political  position ;  he  never  had  a 
vestige  of  Milnes's  wit  or  variety ;  he  was  a  tall,  rough,  ungainly  figure, 
affecting  the  singular  form  of  self-defence  which  the  Yorkshiremen  and 
Lancashiremen  seem  to  hold  dear, — the  exterior  roughness  assumed  to 
cover  an  internal,  emotional,  almost  sentimental  nature.  Kindly  he  had 
to  be,  if  only  by  his  inheritance  from  a  Quaker  ancestry,  but  he  was 
a  Friend  one  degree  removed.  Sentimental  and  emotional  he  must  have 
been,  or  he  could  never  have  persuaded  a  daughter  of  Doctor  Arnold 
to  marry  him.  Pure  gold,  without  a  trace  of  base  metal ;  honest, 
unselfish,  practical ;  he  took  up  the  Union  cause  and  made  himself  its 
champion,  as  a  true  Yorkshiremen  was  sure  to  do,  partly  because  of 
his  Quaker  anti-slavery  convictions,  and  partly  because  it  gave  him  a 
practical  opening  in  the  House.  As  a  new  member,  he  needed  a 
field. 

Diffidence  was  not  one  of  Forster's  weaknesses.  His  practical  sense 
and  his  personal  energy  soon  established  him  in  leadership,  and  made 
him  a  powerful  champion,  not  so  much  for  ornament  as  for  work.  With 
such  a  manager,  the  friends  of  the  Union  in  England  began  to  take 
heart.  Minister  Adams  had  only  to  look  on  as  his  true  champions,  the 
heavy-weights,  came  into  action,  and  even  the  private  secretary  caught 
now  and  then  a  stray  gleam  of  encouragement  as  he  saw  the  ring  begin 
to  clear  for  these  burly  Yorkshiremen  to  stand  up  in  a  prize-fight 
likely  to  be  as  brutal  as  ever  England  had  known.  Milnes  and  Forster 
were  not  exactly  light-weights,  but  Bright  and  Cobden  were  the  hardest 
hitters  in  England,  and  with  them  for  champions  the  Minister  could 
tackle  even  Lord  Palmerston  without  much  fear  of  foul  play. 


108  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

In  society  John  Bright  and  .Richard  Cobden  were  never  seen,  and 
even  in  Parliament  they  had  no  large  following.  They  were  classed  as 
enemies  of  order, — anarchists, — and  anarchists  they  were  if  hatred  of 
the  so-called  established  orders  made  them  so.  About  them  was  no  sort 
of  political  timidity.  They  took  bluntly  the  side  of  the  Union  against 
Palmerston  whom  they  hated.  Strangers  to  London  society,  they  were 
at  home  in  the  American  Legation,  delightful  dinner-company,  talking 
always  with  reckless  freedom.  Cobden  was  the  milder  and  more  persuasive ; 
Bright  was  the  more  dangerous  to  approach  ;  but  the  private  secretary 
delighted  in  both,  and  nourished  an  ardent  wish  to  see  them  talk  the 
the  same  language  to  Lord  John  Russell  from  the  gangway  of  the  House. 

With  four  such  allies  as  these,  Minister  Adams  stood  no  longer  quite 
helpless.  For  the  second  time  the  British  ministry  felt  a  little  ashamed 
of  itself  after  the  Trent  affair,  as  well  it  might,  and  disposed  to  wait 
before  moving  again.  Little  by  little,  friends  gathered  about  the  Le 
gation  who  were  no  fair-weather  companions.  The  old  anti-slavery, 
Exeter  Hall,  Shaftesbury  clique  turned  out  to  be  an  annoying  and 
troublesome  enemy,  but  the  Duke  of  Argyll  was  one  of  the  most  valuable 
friends  the  Minister  found,  both  politically  and  socially,  and  the  Duchess 
was  as  true  as  her  mother.  Even  the  private  secretary  shared  faintly 
in  the  social  profit  of  this  relation,  and  never  forgot  dining  one  night 
at  the  Lodge,  and  finding  himself  after  dinner  engaged  in  instructing 
John  Stuart  Mill  about  the  peculiar  merits  of  an  American  protective 
system.  In  spite  of  all  the  probabilities,  he  convinced  himself  that  it 
was  not  the  Duke's  claret  which  led  him  to  this  singular  form  of 
loquacity ;  he  insisted  that  it  was  the  fault  of  Mr.  Mill  himself  who  led 
him  on  by  assenting  to  his  point  of  view.  Mr.  Mill  took  no  apparent 
pleasure  in  dispute,  and  in  that  respect  the  Duke  would  perhaps  have 
done  better ;  but  the  secretary  had  to  admit  that  though  at  other  periods 
of  life  he  was  sufficiently  and  even  amply  snubbed  by  Englishmen,  he 
could  never  recall  a  single  occasion  during  this  trying  year,  when  he 
had  to  complain  of  rudeness. 

Friendliness  he  found  here  and  there,  but  chiefly  among  his  elders ; 
not  among  fashionable  or  socially  powerful  people,  either  men  or  women  ; 
although  not  even  this  rule  was  quite  exact,  for  Frederick  Cavendish's 
kindness  and  intimate  relations  made  Devonshire  House  almost  familiar, 


DIPLOMACY  109 

and  Lyulph  Stanley's  ardent  Americanism  created  a  certain  cordiality 
with  the  Stanleys  of  Alderley  whose  house  was  one  of  the  most  frequented 
in  London.  Lome,  too,  the  future  Argyll,  was  always  a  friend.  Yet 
the  regular  course  of  society  led  to  more  literary  intimacies.  Sir  Charles 
Trevelyan's  house  was  one  of  the  first  to  which  young  Adams  was  asked, 
and  with  which  his  friendly  relations  never  ceased  for  near  half  a  cent 
ury,  and  then  only  when  death  stopped  them.  Sir  Charles  and  Lady 
Lyell  were  intimates.  Tom  Hughes  came  into  close  alliance.  By  the 
time  society  began  to  reopen  its  doors  after  the  death  of  the  Prince 
Consort,  even  the  private  secretary  occasionally  saw  a  face  he  knew, 
although  he  made  no  more  effort  of  any  kind,  but  silently  waited  the 
end.  Whatever  might  be  the  advantages  of  social  relations  to  his  father 
and  mother,  to  him  the  whole  business  of  diplomacy  and  society  was 
futile.  He  meant  to  go  home. 


CHAPTEK    IX 

1862 

Of  the  year  1862  Henry  Adams  could  never  think  without  a  shudder. 
The  war  alone  did  not  greatly  distress  him ;  already  in  his  short  life  he 
was  used  to  seeing  people  wade  in  blood,  and  he  could  plainly  discern  in 
history,  that  man  from  the  beginning  had  found  his  chief  amusement  in 
bloodshed ;  but  the  ferocious  joy  of  destruction  at  its  best  requires  that 
one  should  kill  what  one  hates,  and  young  Adams  neither  hated  nor 
wanted  to  kill  his  friends  the  rebels,  while  he  wanted  nothing  so  much 
as  to  wipe  England  off  the  earth.  Never  could  any  good  come  from 
that  besotted  race !  He  was  feebly  trying  to  save  his  own  life.  Every 
day  the  British  government  deliberately  crowded  him  one  step  further 
into  the  grave.  He  could  see  it ;  the  Legation  knew  it ;  no  one  doubted 
it ;  no  one  thought  of  questioning  it.  The  Trent  Affair  showed  where 
Palmerston  and  Russell  stood.  The  escape  of  the  rebel  cruisers  from 
Liverpool  was  not,  in  a  young  man's  eyes,  the  sign  of  hesitation,  but  the 
proof  of  their  fixed  intention  to  intervene.  Lord  Russell's  replies  to 
Mr.  Adams's  notes  were  discourteous  in  their  indifference,  and,  to  an 
irritable  young  private  secretary  of  twenty-four,  were  insolent  in  their 
disregard  of  truth.  Whatever  forms  of  phrase  were  usual  in  public  to 
modify  the  harshness  of  invective,  in  private  no  political  opponent  in 
England,  and  few  political  friends,  hesitated  to  say  brutally  of  Lord  John 
Russell  that  he  lied.  This  was  no  great  reproach,  for,  more  or  less, 
every  statesman  lied,  but  the  intensity  of  the  private  secretary's  rage 
sprang  from  his  belief  that  Russell's  form  of  defence  covered  intent  to 
kill.  Not  for  an  instant  did  the  Legation  draw  a  free  breath.  The 
suspense  was  hideous  and  unendurable. 
110 


FOES   OR  FRIENDS  111 

The  Minister,  no  doubt,  endured  it,  but  he  had  support  and  con 
sideration,  while  his  son  had  nothing  to  think  about  but  his  friends  who 
were  mostly  dying  under  McClellan  in  the  swamps  about  Richmond, 
or  his  enemies  who  were  exulting  in  Pall  Mall.  He  bore  it  as  well  as 
he  could  till  midsummer,  but,  when  the  story  of  the  second  Bull  Run 
appeared,  he  could  bear  it  no  longer,  and  after  a  sleepless  night, 
walking  up  and  down  his  room  without  reflecting  that  his  father  was 
beneath  him,  he  announced  at  breakfast  his  intention  to  go  home  into 
the  army.  His  mother  seemed  to  be  less  impressed  by  the  announcement 
than  by  the  walking  over  her  head,  which  was  so  unlike  her  as  to 
surprise  her  son.  His  father,  too,  received  the  announcement  quietly. 
No  doubt  they  expected  it,  and  had  taken  their  measures  in  advance. 
In  those  days,  parents  got  used  to  all  sorts  of  announcements  from  their 
children.  Mr.  Adams  took  his  son's  defection  as  quietly  as  he  took 
Bull  Run ;  but  his  son  never  got  the  chance  to  go.  Jle  found  obstacles 
constantly  rising  in  his  path.  The  remonstrances  of  his  brother  Charles, 
who  was  himself  in  the  army  of  the  Potomac,  and  whose  opinion  had 
always  the  greatest  weight  with  Henry,  had  much  to  do  with  delaying 
action  ;  but  he  felt,  of  his  own  accord  that  if  he  deserted  his  post  in 
London,  and  found  the  Capuan  comforts  he  expected  in  Virginia  where 
he  would  have  only  bullets  to  wound  him,  he  would  never  forgive 
himself  for  leaving  his  father  and  mother  alone  to  be  devoured  by  the 
wild  beasts  of  the  British  amphitheatre.  This  reflection  might  not  have 
stopped  him,  but  his  father's  suggestion  was  decisive.  The  Minister 
pointed  out  that  it  was  too  late  for  him  to  take  part  in  the  actual 
campaign,  and  that  long  before  next  spring  they  would  all  go  home 
together. 

The  young  man  had  copied  too  many  affidavits  about  rebel  cruisers 
to  miss  the  point  of  this  argument,  so  he  sat  down  again  to  copy  some 
more.  Consul  Dudley  at  Liverpool  provided  a  continuous  supply. 
Properly,  the  affidavits  were  no  business  of  the  private  secretary,  but 
practically  the  private  secretary  did  a  second  secretary's  work,  and  was 
glad  to  do  it,  if  it  would  save  Mr.  Seward  the  trouble  of  sending  more 
secretaries  of  his  own  selection  to  help  the  Minister.  The  work  was 
nothing,  and  no  one  ever  complained  of  it ;  not  even  Moran,  the 
Secretary  of  Legation  after  the  departure  of  Charley  Wilson,  though  he 


112  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

might  sit  up  all  night  to  copy.  Not  the  work,  but  the  play  exhausted. 
The  effort  of  facing  a  hostile  society  was  bad  enough,  but  that  of  facing 
friends  was  worse.  After  terrific  disasters  like  the  seven  days  before 
Richmond  and  the  second  Bull  Run,  friends  needed  support ;  a  tone  of 
bluff  would  have  been  fatal,  for  the  average  mind  sees  quickest  through  a 
bluff;  nothing  answers  but  candor ;  yet  private  secretaries  never  feel  candid, 
however  much  they  feel  the  reverse,  and  therefore  they  must  affect  candor ; 
not  always  a  simple  act  when  one  is  exasperated,  furious,  bitter,  and 
choking  with  tears  over  the  blunders  and  incapacity  of  one's  govern 
ment.  If  one  shed  tears,  they  must  be  shed  on  one's  pillow.  Least 
of  all,  must  one  throw  extra  strain  on  the  Minister,  who  had  all  he 
could  carry  without  being  fretted  in  his  family.  One  must  read  one's 
Times  every  morning  over  one's  muffin  without  reading  aloud — "  Another 
disastrous  Federal  Defeat ; "  and  one  might  not  even  indulge  in  harm 
less  profanity.  Sel^f-restraint  among  friends  required  much  more  effort 
than  keeping  a  quiet  face  before  enemies.  Great  men  were  the  worst 
blunderers.  One  day  the  private  secretary  smiled,  when  standing  with 
the  crowd  in  the  throne-room  while  the  endless  procession  made  bows  to 
the  royal  family,  at  hearing,  behind  his  shoulder,  one  cabinet  minister 
remark  gaily  to  another  : — "  So  the  federals  have  got  another  licking  !  " 
The  point  of  the  remark  was  its  truth.  Even  a  private  secretary  had 
learned  to  control  his  tones  and  guard  his  features  and  betray  no  joy 
over  the  "  lickings  "  of  an  enemy — in  the  enemy's  presence. 

London  was  altogether  beside  itself  on  one  point,  in  especial ;  it 
created  a  nightmare  of  its  own,  and  gave  it  the  shape  of  Abraham 
Lincoln.  Behind  this  it  placed  another  demon,  if  possible  more  devilish, 
and  called  it  Mr.  Seaward.  In  regard  to  these  two  men,  English  society 
seemed  demented.  Defence  was  useless ;  explanation  was  vain ;  one 
could  only  let  the  passion  exhaust  itself.  One's  best  friends  were  as 
unreasonable  as  enemies,  for  the  belief  in  poor  Mr.  Lincoln's  brutality 
and  Seward's  ferocity  became  a  dogma  of  popular  faith.  The  last  time 
Henry  Adams  saw  Thackeray,  before  his  sudden  death  at  Christmas 
in  1863,  was  in  entering  the  house  of  Sir  Henry  Holland  for  an  evening 
reception.  Thackeray  was  pulling  on  his  coat  downstairs,  laughing 
because,  in  his  usual  blind  way,  he  had  stumbled  into  the  wrong 
house  and  not  found  it  out  till  he  shook  hands  with  old  Sir  Henry, 


FOES  OR  FRIENDS  113 

whom  he  knew  very  well,  but  who  was  not  the  host  he  expected. 
Then  his  tone  changed  as  he  spoke  of  his — and  Adams's — friend  Mrs. 
Frank  Hampton  of  South  Carolina,  whom  he  had  loved  as  Sally  Baxter 
and  painted  as  Ethel  Newcomb.  Though  he  had  never  quite  forgiven 
her  marriage,  his  warmth  of  feeling  revived  when  he  heard  that  she 
had  died  of  consumption  at  Columbia  while  her  parents  and  sister 
were  refused  permission  to  pass  through  the  lines  to  see  her.  In 
speaking  of  it,  Thackeray's  voice  trembled  and  his  eyes  filled  with 
tears.  The  coarse  cruelty  of  Lincoln  and  his  hirelings  was  notorious. 
He  never  doubted  that  the  Federals  made  a  business  of  harrowing  the 
tenderest  feelings  of  women — particularly  of  women — in  order  to  punish 
their  opponents.  On  quite  insufficient  evidence  he  burst  into  violent 
reproach.  Had  Adams  carried  in  his  pocket  the  proofs  that  the 
reproach  was  unjust,  he  would  have  gained  nothing  by  showing  them. 
At  that  moment,  Thackeray  and  all  London  society  with  him,  needed 
the  nervous  relief  of  expressing  emotion;  for  if  Mr.  Lincoln  was  not 
what  they  said  he  was, — what  were  they  ? 

For  like  reason,  the  members  of  the  Legation  kept  silence,  even 
in  private,  under  the  boorish  Scotch  jibes  of  Carlyle.  If  Carlyle  was 
wrong,  his  diatribes  would  give  his  true  measure,  and  this  measure 
would  be  a  low  one,  for  Carlyle  was  not  likely  to  be  more  sincere 
or  more  sound  in  one  thought  than  in  another.  The  proof  that  a 
philosopher  does  not  know  what  he  is  talking  about  is  apt  to  sadden 
his  followers  before  it  reacts  on  himself.  Demolition  of  one's  idols  is 
painful,  and  Carlyle  had  been  an  idol.  Doubts  cast  on  his  stature 
spread  far  into  general  darkness  like  shadows  of  a  setting  sun.  Not 
merely  the  idols  fell,  but  also  the  habit  of  faith.  If  Carlyle,  too, 
was  a  fraud,  what  were  his  scholars  and  school  ? 

Society  as  a  rule  was  civil,  and  one  had  no  more  reason  to 
complain  than  every  other  diplomatist  has  had,  in  like  conditions,  but 
one's  few  friends  in  society  were  mere  ornament.  The  Legation  could 
not  dream  of  contesting  social  control.  The  best  they  could  do  was 
to  escape  mortification,  and  by  this  time  their  relations  were  good  enough 
to  save  the  Minister's  family  from  that  annoyance.  Now  and  then,  the 
fact  could  not  be  wholly  disguised  that  some  one  had  refused  to  meet, — 
or  to  receive — the  Minister ;  but  never  an  open  insult,  or  any  expression 
8 


114  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

of  which  the  Minister  had  to  take  notice.  Diplomacy  served  as  a 
buffer  in  times  of  irritation,  and  no  diplomate  who  knew  his  business 
fretted  at  what  every  diplomate — and  none  more  commonly  than  the 
English — had  to  expect ;  therefore  Henry  Adams,  though  not  a  diplomate 
and  wholly  unprotected,  went  his  way  peacefully  enough,  seeing  clearly 
that  society  cared  little  to  make  his  acquaintance,  but  seeing  also  no 
reason  why  society  should  discover  charms  in  him  of  which  he  was 
himself  unconscious.  He  went  where  he  was  asked ;  he  was  always 
courteously  received ;  he  was,  on  the  whole,  better  treated  than  at 
Washington ;  and  he  held  his  tongue. 

For  a  thousand  reasons,  the  best  diplomatic  house  in  London  was 
Lord  Palmerston's,  while  Lord  John  Russell's  was  one  of  the  worst.  Of 
neither  host  could  a  private  secretary  expect  to  know  anything.  He  might 
as  well  have  expected  to  know  the  Grand  Lama.  Personally  Lord  Pal- 
merston  was  the  last  man  in  London  that  a  cautious  private  secretary 
wanted  to  know.  Other  prime  ministers  may  perhaps  have  lived  who 
inspired  among  diplomatists  as  much  distrust  as  Palmerston,  and  yet 
between  Palmerston's  word  and  Russell's  word,  one  hesitated  to  decide, 
and  gave  years  of  education  to  deciding,  whether  either  could  be  trusted, 
or  how  far.  The  Queen  herself  in  her  famous  memoranda  of  August  12, 
1850,  gave  her  opinion  of  Palmerston  in  words  that  differed  little  from 
words  used  by  Lord  John  Russell,  and  both  the  Queen  and  Russell  said 
in  substance  only  what  Cobden  and  Bright  said  in  private.  Every  diplo 
matist  agreed  with  them,  yet  the  diplomatic  standard  of  trust  seemed  to 
be  other  than  the  parliamentarian.  No  professional  diplomatists  worried 
about  falsehoods.  Words  were  with  them  forms  of  expression  which 
varied  with  individuals,  but  falsehood  was  more  or  less  necessary  to  all. 
The  worst  liars  were  the  candid.  What  diplomatists  wanted  to  know  was 
the  motive  that  lay  beyond  the  expression.  In  the  case  of  Palmerston 
they  were  unanimous  in  warning  new  colleagues  that  they  might  expect 
to  be  sacrificed  by  him  to  any  momentary  personal  object.  Every  new 
minister  or  ambassador  at  the  Court  of  St.  James  received  this  preliminary 
lesson  that  he  must,  if  possible,  keep  out  of  Palmerston's  reach.  The  rule 
was  not  secret  or  merely  diplomatic.  The  Queen  herself  had  emphati 
cally  expressed  the  same  opinion  officially.  If  Palmerston  had  an  object 
to  gain,  he  would  go  down  to  the  House  of  Commons  and  betray  or 


FOES  OR  FRIENDS  115 

misrepresent  a  foreign  minister,  without  concern  for  his  victim.  No  one 
got  back  on  him  with  a  blow  equally  mischievous,  —  not  even  the  Queen, 
—  for,  as  old  Baron  Brunnow  described  him:  —  "  C'est  une  peau  de  rhino- 
cere  ! "  Having  gained  his  point,  he  laughed,  and  his  public  laughed 
with  him,  for  the  usual  British — or  American — public  likes  to  be  amused, 
and  thought  it  very  amusing  to  see  these  beribboned  and  bestarred 
foreigners  caught  and  tossed  and  gored  on  the  horns  of  this  jovial,  slash 
ing,  devil-may-care  British  bull. 

Diplomatists  have  no  right  to  complain  of  mere  lies ;  it  is  their  own 
fault,  if,  educated  as  they  are,  the  lies  deceive  them  ;  but  they  complain 
bitterly  of  traps.  Palmerston  was  believed  to  lay  traps.  He  was  the 
enfant  terrible  of  the  British  Government.  On  the  other  hand,  Lady 
Palmerston  was  believed  to  be  good  and  loyal.  All  the  diplomates  and 
their  wives  seemed  to  think  so,  and  took  their  troubles  to  her,  believing 
that  she  would  try  to  help  them.  For  this  reason  among  others,  her 
evenings  at  home, — Saturday  Reviews,  they  were  called, — had  great 
vogue.  An  ignorant  young  American  could  not  be  expected  to  explain  it. 
Cambridge  House  was  no  better  for  entertaining  than  a  score  of  others. 
Lady  Palmerston  was  no  longer  young  or  handsome,  and  could  hardly 
at  any  age  have  been  vivacious.  The  people  one  met  there  were  never 
smart  and  seldom  young ;  they  were  largely  diplomatic,  and  diplomates 
are  commonly  dull ;  they  were  largely  political,  and  politicians  rarely 
decorate  or  beautify  an  evening  party ;  they  were  sprinkled  with  literary 
people,  who  are  notoriously  unfashionable ;  the  women  were  of  course  ill- 
dressed  and  middle-aged ;  the  men  looked  mostly  bored  or  out  of  place ; 
yet,  beyond  a  doubt,  Cambridge  House  was  the  best,  and  perhaps  the 
only  political  house  in  London,  and  its  success  was  due  to  Lady  Pal 
merston,  who  never  seemed  to  make  an  effort  beyond  a  friendly  recog 
nition.  As  a  lesson  in  social  education,  Cambridge  House  gave  much 
subject  for  thought.  First  or  last,  one  was  to  know  dozens  of  statesmen 
more  powerful  and  more  agreeable  than  Lord  Palmerston  ;  dozens  of  ladies 
more  beautiful  and  more  painstaking  than  Lady  Palmerston ;  but  no 
political  house  so  successful  as  Cambridge  House.  The  world  never 
explains  such  riddles.  The  foreigners  said  only  that  Lady  Palmerston 
was  "  sympathique." 

The   small    fry    of  the    legations   were    admitted   there,   or   tolerated, 


116  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

without  a  further  effort  to  recognise  their  existence,  but  they  were  pleased 
because  rarely  tolerated  anywhere  else,  and  there  they  could  at  least  stand 
in  a  corner  and  look  at  a  Bishop  or  even  a  Duke,  This  was  the  social 
diversion  of  young  Adams.  No  one  knew  him, — not  even  the  lackeys. 
The  last  Saturday  evening  he  ever  attended,  he  gave  his  name  as  usual 
at  the  foot  of  the  staircase,  and  was  rather  disturbed  to  hear  it  shouted 
up  as  "  Mr.  Handrew  Hadams ! "  He  tried  to  correct  it,  and  the  foot 
man  shouted  more  loudly  : — "  Mr.  Hanthony  Hadams !  "  With  some 
temper  he  repeated  the  correction,  and  was  finally  announced  as  "  Mr. 
Halexander  Hadams,"  and  under  this  name  made  his  bow  for  the  last 
time  to  Lord  Palmerston  who  certainly  knew  no  better. 

Far  down  the  staircase  one  heard  Lord  Palmerston's  laugh  as  he 
stood  at  the  door  receiving  his  guests,  talking  probably  to  one  of  his 
henchmen,  Delane,  Borthwick  or  Hayward,  who  were  sure  to  be  near. 
The  laugh  was  singular,  mechanical,  wooden,  and  did  not  seem  to  disturb 
his  features.  "  Ha !  .  .  .  .  Ha !  .  .  .  .  Ha ! "  Each  was  a  slow,  delibe 
rate  ejaculation,  and  all  were  in  the  same  tone,  as  though  he  meant  to 
say  : — "  Yes !  .  .  .  .  Yes !  .  .  .  .  Yes ! ",  by  way  of  assurance.  It  was  a 
laugh  of  1810  and  the  Congress  of  Vienna.  Adams  would  have  much 
liked  to  stop  a  moment  and  ask  whether  William  Pitt  and  the  Duke  of 
Wellington  had  laughed  so ;  but  young  men  attached  to  foreign  ministers 
asked  no  questions  at  all  of  Palmerston  and  their  chiefs  asked  as  few  as 
possible.  One  made  the  usual  bow  and  received  the  usual  glance  of 
civility ;  then  passed  on  to  Lady  Palmerston  who  was  always  kind  in 
manner,  but  who  wasted  no  remarks ;  and  so  to  Lady  Jocelyn  with  her 
daughter  who  commonly  had  something  friendly  to  say ;  then  went 
through  the  diplomatic  corps,  Brunnow,  Musurus,  Azeglio,  Apponyi,  Van 
de  Weyer,  Bille,  Tricoupi,  and  the  rest,  finally  dropping  into  the  hands 
of  some  literary  accident  as  strange  there  as  oneself,  The  routine  varied 
little.  There  was  no  attempt  at  entertainment.  Except  for  the  desperate 
isolation  of  these  two  first  seasons,  even  secretaries  would  have  found  the 
effort  almost  as  mechanical  as  a  levee  at  St.  James's  Palace. 

Lord  Palmerston  was  not  Foreign  Secretary ;  he  was  Prime  Minister, 
but  he  loved  foreign  affairs  and  could  no  more  resist  scoring  a  point  in 
diplomacy  than  in  whist.  Ministers  of  foreign  powers,  knowing  his  habits, 
tried  to  hold  him  at  arms'-length,  and,  to  do  this,  were  obliged  to  court 


FOES  OR  FRIENDS  117 

the  actual  Foreign  Secretary,  Lord  John  Russell,  who,  on  July  30, 
1861,  was  called  up  to  the  House  of  Lords  as  an  Earl.  By  some 
process  of  personal  affiliation,  Minister  Adams  succeeded  in  persuading 
himself  that  he  could  trust  Lord  Russell  more  safely  than  Lord  Palmer- 
ston.  His  son,  being  young  and  ill-balanced  in  temper,  thought  there 
was  nothing  to  choose.  Englishmen  saw  little  difference  between  them, 
and  Americans  were  bound  to  follow  English  experience  in  English 
character.  Minister  Adams  had  much  to  learn,  although  with  him  as  well 
as  with  his  son,  the  months  of  education  began  to  count  as  aeons. 

Just  as  Brunnow  predicted,  Lord  Palmerston  made  his  rush  at  last, 
as  unexpected  as  always,  and  more  furiously  than  though  still  a  private 
secretary  of  twenty-four.  Only  a  man  who  had  been  young  with  the 
battle  of  Trafalgar  could  be  fresh  and  jaunty  to  that  point,  but  Minister 
Adams  was  not  in  a  position  to  sympathise  with  octogenarian  youth  and 
found  himself  in  a  danger  as  critical  as  that  of  his  numerous  predecessors. 
It  was  late  one  afternoon  in  June,  1862,  as  the  private  secretary  returned, 
with  the  Minister,  from  some  social  function,  that  he  saw  his  father  pick 
up  a  note  from  his  desk  and  read  it  in  silence.  Then  he  said  curtly 
— "  Palmerston  wants  a  quarrel ! "  This  was  the  point  of  the  incident  as: 
he  felt  it.  Palmerston  wanted  a  quarrel ;  he  must  not  be  gratified ;  he 
must  be  stopped.  The  matter  of  quarrel  was  General  Butler's  famous 
woman-order  at  New  Orleans,  but  the  motive  was  the  belief  in  President 
Lincoln's  brutality  that  had  taken  such  deep  root  in  the  British  mind. 
Knowing  Palmerston's  habits,  the  Minister  took  for  granted  that  he 
meant  to  score  a  diplomatic  point  by  producing  this  note  in  the  House 
of  Commons.  If  he  did  this  at  once,  the  Minister  was  lost ;  the  quarrel 
was  made ;  and  one  new  victim  to  Palmerston's  passion  for  popularity  was 
sacrificed. 

The  moment  was  nervous  but  the  story  belongs  to  history,  not  to 
education,  and  can  be  read  there  by  anyone  who  cares  to  read  it.  As  a 
part  of  Henry  Adams's  education  it  had  a  value  distinct  from  history. 
That  his  father  succeeded  in  muzzling  Palmerston  without  a  public 
scandal,  was  well  enough  for  the  Minister,  but  was  not  enough  for  a 
private  secretary  who  liked  going  to  Cambridge  House,  and  was  puzzled 
to  reconcile  contradictions.  That  Palmerston  had  wanted  a  quarrel  was 
obvious ;  why,  then,  did  he  submit  so  tamely  to  being  made  the  victim  of 


118  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

the  quarrel  ?  The  correspondence  that  followed  his  note  was  conducted 
feebly  on  his  side,  and  he  allowed  the  United  States  Minister  to  close  it 
by  a  refusal  to  receive  further  communications  from  him  except  through 
Lord  Russell.  The  step  was  excessively  strong,  for  it  broke  off  private 
relations  as  well  as  public,  and  cost  even  the  private  secretary  his 
invitations  to  Cambridge  House.  Lady  Palmerston  tried  her  best,  but 
the  two  ladies  found  no  resource  except  tears.  They  had  to  do  with  an 
American  Minister  perplexed  in  the  extreme.  Not  that  Mr.  Adams  lost 
his  temper,  for  he  never  felt  such  a  weight  of  responsibility,  and  was 
never  more  cool ;  but  he  could  conceive  no  other  way  of  protecting  his 
government,  not  to  speak  of  himself,  than  to  force  Lord  Russell  to 
interpose.  He  believed  that  Palmerston's  submission  and  silence  were  due 
to  Russell.  Perhaps  he  was  right ;  at  the  time,  his  son  had  no  doubt  of 
it,  though  afterwards  he  felt  less  sure.  Palmerston  wanted  a  quarrel  ; 
the  motive  seemed  evident;  yet  when  the  quarrel  was  made,  lie  backed 
out  of  it ;  for  some  reason  it  seemed  that  he  did  not  want  it, — at  least, 
not  then.  He  never  showed  resentment  against  Mr.  Adams  at  the  time  or 
afterwards.  He  never  began  another  quarrel.  Incredible  as  it  seemed,  he 
behaved  like  a  well-bred  gentleman  who  felt  himself  in  the  wrong. 
Possibly  this  change  may  have  been  due  to  Lord  Russell's  remonstrances, 
but  the  private  secretary  would  have  felt  his  education  in  politics  more 
complete  had  he  ever  finally  made  up  his  mind  whether  Palmerston  was 
more  angry  with  General  Butler,  or  more  annoyed  at  himself,  for 
committing  what  was  in  both  cases  an  unpardonable  betise. 

At  the  time,  the  question  was  hardly  raised,  for  no  one  doubted 
Palmerston's  attitude  or  his  plans.  The  season  was  near  its  end,  and 
Cambridge  House  was  soon  closed.  The  Legation  had  troubles  enough 
without  caring  to  publish  more.  The  tide  of  English  feeling  ran  so 
violently  against  it  that  one  could  only  wait  to  see  whether  General 
McClellan  would  bring  it  relief.  The  year  1862  was  a  dark  spot  in 
Henry  Adams's  life,  and  the  education  it  gave  was  mostly  one  that  he 
gladly  forgot.  As  far  as  he  was  aware,  he  made  no  friends ;  he  could 
hardly  make  enemies ;  yet  towards  the  close  of  the  year  he  was  nattered 
by  an  invitation  from  Monckton  Milnes  to  Fryston,  and  it  was  one  of  many 
acts  of  charity  towards  the  young  that  gave  Milnes  immortality.  Milnes 
made  it  his  business  to  be  kind.  Other  people  criticised  him  for  his  manner 
of  doing  it,  but  never  imitated  him.  Naturally,  a  dispirited,  disheartened 


FOES  OR  FRIENDS  119 

private  secretary  was  exceedingly  grateful,  and  never  forgot  the  kindnessf, 
but  it  was  chiefly  as  education  that  this  first  country  visit  had  value. 
Commonly,  country  visits  are  much  alike,  but  Monckton  Milnes  was  never 
like  anybody,  and  his  country  parties  served  his  purpose  of  mixing 
strange  elements.  Fryston  was  one  of  a  class  of  houses  that  no  one 
sought  for  its  natural  beauties,  and  the  winter  mists  of  Yorkshire  were 
rather  more  evident  for  the  absence  of  the  hostess  on  account  of  them,  so 
that  the  singular  guests  whom  Milnes  collected  to  enliven  his  December 
had  nothing  to  do  but  astonish  each  other,  if  anything  could  astonish 
such  men.  Of  the  five,  Adams  alone  was  tame ;  he  alone  added  nothing 
to  the  wit  or  humor,  except  as  a  listener ;  but  they  needed  a  listener 
and  he  was  useful.  Of  the  remaining  four,  Milnes  was  the  oldest,  and 
perhaps  the  sanest  in -spite  of  his  superficial  eccentricities,  for  Yorkshire 
sanity  was  true  to  a  standard  of  its  own,  if  not  to  other  conventions  ; 
yet  even  Milnes  startled  a  young  American  whose  Boston  and  Washington 
mind  was  still  fresh.  He  would  not  have  been  startled  by  the  hard-drinking, 
horse-racing  Yorkshireman  of  whom  he  .had  read  in  books ;  but  Milnes 
required  a  knowledge  of  society  and  literature  that  only  himself  possessed, 
if  one  were  to  try  to  keep  pace  with  him.  He  had  sought  contact  with 
everybody  and  everything  that  Europe  could  offer.  He  knew  it  all  from 
several  points  of  view,  and  chiefly  as  humorous. 

The  second  of  the  party  was  also  of  a  certain  age ;  a  quiet,  well- 
mannered,  singularly  agreeable  gentleman  of  the  literary  class.  When  Milnes 
showed  Adams  to  his  room  to  dress  for  dinner,  he  stayed  a  moment  to  say  a 
word  about  this  guest,  whom  he  called  Stirling  of  Keir.  His  sketch 
closed  with  the  hint  that  Stirling  was  violent  only  on  one  point, — hatred 
of  Napoleon  III.  On  that  point,  Adams  was  himself  sensitive,  which 
led  him  to  wonder  how  bad  the  Scotch  gentleman  might  be.  The  third 
was  a  man  of  thirty  or  thereabouts,  whom  Adams  had  already  met  at 
Lady  Palmerston's  carrying  his  arm  in  a  sling.  His  figure  and  bearing 
were  sympathetic, — almost  pathetic, — with  a  certain  grave  and  gentle 
charm,  a  pleasant  smile,  and  an  interesting  story.  He  was  Lawrence 
Oliphant,  just  from  Japan,  where  he  had  been  wounded  in  the  fanatics' 
attack  on  the  British  Legation.  He  seemed  exceptionally  sane  and 
peculiarly  suited  for  country-houses,  where  every  man  would  enjoy  his 
company,  and  every  woman  would  adore  him.  He  had  not  then  published 


120  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

"  Piccadilly ; "  perhaps  he  was  writing  it ;  while,  like  all  the  young  men 
about  the  Foreign  Office,  he  contributed  to  "  The  Owl." 

The  fourth  was  a  boy,  or  had  the  look  of  one,  though  in  fact  a 
year  older  than  Adams  himself.  He  resembled  in  action — and  in  this  trait, 
was  remotely  followed,  a  generation  later,  by  another  famous  young  man, 
Robert  Louis  Stevenson, — a  tropical  bird,  high-crested,  long-beaked,  quick- 
moving,  with  rapid  utterance  and  screams  of  humor,  quite  unlike  any 
English  lark  or  nightingale.  One  could  hardly  call  him  a  crimson  macaw 
among  owls,  and  yet  no  ordinary  contrast  availed.  Milnes  introduced  him 
as  Mr.  Algernon  Swinburne.  The  name  suggested  nothing.  Milnes  was 
was  always  unearthing  new  coins  and  trying  to  give  them  currency.  He 
had  unearthed  Henry  Adams  who  knew  himself  to  be  worthless  and  not 
current.  When  Milnes  lingered  a  moment  in  Adams's  room  to  add  that 
Swinburne  had  written  some  poetry,  not  yet  published,  of  really  extraor 
dinary  merit,  Adams  only  wondered  what  more  Milnes  would  discover, 
and  whether  by  chance  he  could  discover  merit  in  a  private  secretary. 
He  was  capable. 

In  due  course  this  party  of  five  men  sat  down  to  dinner  with  the  usual 
club  manners  of  ladyless  dinner-tables,  easy  and  formal  at  the  same  time. 
Conversation  ran  first  to  Oliphant  who  told  his  dramatic  story  simply,  and 
from  him  the  talk  drifted  off  into  other  channels,  until  Milnes  thought  it 
time  to  bring  Swinburne  out.  Then,  at  last,  if  never  before,  Adams 
acquired  education.  What  he  had  sought  so  long,  he  found ;  but  he  was 
none  the  wiser ;  only  the  more  astonished.  For  once,  too,  he  felt  at  ease, 
for  the  others  were  no  less  astonished  than  himself,  and  their  astonishment 
grew  apace.  For  the  rest  of  the  evening  Swinburne  figured  alone ;  the  end 
of  dinner  made  the  monologue  only  freer,  for  in  1862,  even  when  ladies 
were  not  in  the  house,  smoking  was  forbidden,  and  guests  usually  smoked 
in  the  stables  or  the  kitchen  ;  but  Monckton  Milnes  was  a  licensed  libertine 
who  let  his  guests  smoke  in  Adams's  bed-room,  since  Adams  was  an 
American-German  barbarian  ignorant  of  manners ;  and  there  after  dinner 
all  sat — or  lay — till  far  into  the  night,  listening  to  the  rush  of  Swinburne's 
talk.  In  a  long  experience,  before  or  after,  no  one  ever  approached  it ;  yet 
one  had  heard  accounts  of  the  best  talking  of  the  time,  and  read  accounts 
of  talkers  in  all  time,  among  the  rest,  of  Voltaire,  who  seemed  to  approach 
nearest  the  pattern. 


FOES  OR  FRIENDS  121 

That  Swinburne  was  altogether  new  to  the  three  types  of  men-of-the- 
world  before  him ;  that  he  seemed  to  them  quite  original,  wildly  eccentric, 
astonishingly  gifted  and  convulsingly  droll,  Adams  could  see ;  but  what 
more  he  was,  even  Milnes  hardly  dared  say.  They  could  not  believe  his  in 
credible  memory  and  knowledge  of  literature,  classic,  mediaeval  and  modern ; 
his  faculty  of  reciting  a  play  of  Sophocles  or  a  play  of  Shakespeare, 
forward  or  backward,  from  end  to  beginning ;  or  Dante,  or  Villon,  or 
Victor  Hugo.  They  knew  not  what  to  make  of  his  rhetorical  recitation 
of  his  own  unpublished  ballads, — Faustine ;  the  Four  Boards  of  the  Coffin 
Lid ;  the  Ballad  of  Burdens ; — which  he  declaimed  as  though  they  were 
books  of  the  Iliad.  It  was  singular  that  his  most  appreciative  listener 
should  have  been  the  author  only  of  pretty  verses  like  "  We  wandered 
by  the  brookside,"  and  "  She  seemed  to  those  that  saw  them  meet ";  and 
who  never  cared  to  write  in  any  other  tone;  but  Milnes  took  everything 
into  his  sympathies,  including  Americans  like  young  Adams  whose  stand 
ards  were  stiffest  of  all,  while  Swinburne,  though  millions  of  ages  far  from 
them,  united  them  by  his  humor  even  more  than  by  his  poetry.  The 
story  of  his  first  day  as  a  member  of  Professor  Stubbs's  household  was 
professionally  clever  farce,  if  not  high  comedy,  in  a  young  man  who  could 
write  a  Greek  Ode  or  a  Provengal  Chanson  as  easily  as  an  English  quatrain. 

Late  at  night  when  the  symposium  broke  up,  Stirling  of  Keir  wanted 
to  take  with  him  to  his  chamber  a  copy  of  "  Queen  Kosamund,"  the  only 
volume  Swinburne  had  then  published,  which  was  on  the  library  table, 
and  Adams  offered  to  light  him  down  with  his  solitary  bed-room  candle. 
All  the  way,  Stirling  was  ejaculating  explosions  of  wonder,  until  at  length, 
at  the  foot  of  the  stairs  and  at  the  climax  of  his  imagination,  he  paused, 
and  burst  out : — "He's  a  cross  between  the  devil  and  the  Duke  of  Argyll !  " 

To  appreciate  the  full  merit  of  this  description,  a  judicious  critic 
should  have  known  both,  and  Henry  Adams  knew  only  one, — at  least  in 
person, — but  he  understood  that  to  a  Scotchman  the  likeness  meant  some 
thing  quite  portentous,  beyond  English  experience,  supernatural,  and  what 
the  French  call  moyenageux,  or  mediaeval  with  a  grotesque  turn.  That 
Stirling  as  well  as  Milnes  should  regard  Swinburne  as  a  prodigy  greatly 
comforted  Adams,  who  lost  his  balance  of  mind  at  first  in  trying  to  imagine 
that  Swinburne  was  a  natural  product  of  Oxford,  as  muffins  and  pork-pies 
of  London,  at  once  the  cause  and  effect  of  dyspepsia.  The  idea  that  one 


122  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

has  actually  met  a  real  genius  dawns  slowly  on  a  Boston  mind,  but  it 
made  entry  at  last. 

Then  came  the  sad  reaction,  not  from  Swinburne  whose  genius  never 
was  in  doubt,  but  from  the  Boston  mind  which,  in  its  uttermost  flights,  was 
never  moyenageux.  One  felt  the  horror  of  Longfellow  and  Emerson,  the 
doubts  of  Lowell  and  the  humor  of  Holmes,  at  the  wild  Walpurgis-night 
of  Swinburne's  talk.  What  could  a  shy  young  private  secretary  do  about 
it?  Perhaps,  in  his  good  nature,  Milnes  thought  that  Swinburne  might 
find  a  friend  in  Stirling  or  Oliphant,  but  he  could  hardly  have  fancied 
Henry  Adams  rousing  in  him  even  an  interest.  Adams  could  no  more 
interest  Algernon  Swinburne  than  he  could  interest  Encke's  comet.  To 
Swinburne  he  could  be  no  more  than  a  worm.  The  quality  of  genius  was 
an  education  almost  ultimate,  for  one  touched  there  the  limits  of  the 
human  mind  on  that  side ;  but  one  could  only  receive ;  one  had  nothing 
to  give, — nothing  even  to  offer. 

Swinburne  tested  him  then  and  there  by  one  of  his  favorite  tests, 
— Victor  Hugo ;  for  to  him  the  test  of  Victor  Hugo  was  the  surest  and 
quickest  of  standards.  French  poetry  is  at  .best  a  severe  exercise  for 
foreigners ;  it  requires  extraordinary  knowledge  of  the  language  and  rare 
refinement  of  ear  to  appreciate  even  the  recitation  of  French  verse ;  but 
unless  a  poet  has  both,  he  lacks  something  of  poetry.  Adams  had 
neither.  To  the  end  of  his  life  he  never  listened  to  a  French  recitation 
with  pleasure,  or  felt  a  sense  of  majesty  in  French  verse ;  but  he  did 
not  care  to  proclaim  his  weakness,  and  he  tried  to  evade  Swinburne's 
vehement  insistance  by  parading  an  affection  for  Alfred  de  Musset. 
Swinburne  would  have  none  of  it;  de  Musset  was  unequal;  he  did  not 
sustain  himself  on  the  wing. 

Adams  would  have  given  a  world  or  two,  if  he  owned  one,  to  sustain 
himself  on  the  wing  like  de  Musset,  or  even  like  Hugo;  but  his 
education  as  well  as  his  ear  was  at  fault,  and  he  succumbed.  Swinburne 
tried  him  again  on  Walter  Savage  Landor.  In  truth  the  test  was  the 
same,  for  Swinburne  admired  in  Landor's  English  the  qualities  that  he 
felt  in  Hugo's  French ;  and  Adams's  failure  was  equally  gross,  for,  when 
forced  to  despair,  he  had  to  admit  that  both  Hugo  and  Landor  bored 
him.  Nothing  more  was  needed.  One  who  could  feel  neither  Hugo 
nor  Landor  was  lost. 


FOES  OR  FRIENDS  123 

The  sentence  was  just  and  Adams  never  appealed  from  it.  He  knew 
his  inferiority  in  taste  as  he  might  know  it  in  smell.  Keenly  mortified 
by  the  dulness  of  his  senses  and  instincts,  he  knew  he  was  no  companion 
for  Swinburne ;  probably  he  could  be  only  an  annoyance ;  no  number 
of  centuries  could  ever  educate  him  to  Swinburne's  level,  even  in 
technical  appreciation ;  yet  he  often  wondered  whether  there  was  nothing 
he  had  to  offer  that  was  worth  the  poet's  acceptance.  Certainly  such 
mild  homage  as  the  American  insect  would  have  been  only  too  happy  to 
bring,  had  he  known  how,  was  hardly  worth  the  acceptance  of  anyone. 
Only  in  France  is  the  attitude  of  prayer  possible ;  in  England  it  became 
absurd.  Even  Monckton  Milnes,  who  felt  the  splendors  of  Hugo  and 
Landor,  was  almost  as  helpless  as  an  American  private  secretary  in 
personal  contact  with  them.  Ten  years  afterwards  Adams  met  him  at 
the  Geneva  Conference,  fresh  from  Paris,  bubbling  with  delight  at  a 
call  he  had  made  on  Hugo:  —  "I  was  shown  into  a  large  room,"  he  said, 
"with  women  and  men  seated  in  chairs  against  the  walls,  and  Hugo  at 
one  end  throned.  No  one  spoke.  At  last  Hugo  raised  his  voice 
solemnly,  and  uttered  the  words:  —  'Quant  a  moi,  je  crois  en  Dieu!' 
Silence  followed.  Then  a  woman  responded  as  if  in  deep  meditation : — 
'  Chose  sublime  !  un  Dieu  qui  croit  en  Dieu ! ' 

With  the  best  of  will,  one  could  not  do  this  in  London ;  the  actors 
had  not  the  instinct  of  the  drama ;  and  yet  even  a  private  secretary  was 
not  wholly  wanting  in  instinct.  As  soon  as  he  reached  town  he  hurried 
to  Pickering's  for  a  copy  of  "  Queen  Rosamund,"  and  at  that  time,  if 
Swinburne  was  not  joking,  Pickering  had  sold  seven  copies.  When  the 
"  Poems  and  Ballads "  came  out,  and  met  their  great  success  and  scandal, 
he  sought  one  of  the  first  copies  from  Moxon.  If  he  had  sinned  and 
doubted  at  all,  he  wholly  repented  and  did  penance  before  "Atalanta  in 
Calydon,"  and  would  have  offered  Swinburne  as  solemn  worship  as 
Milnes's  female  offered  Hugo,  if  it  would  have  pleased  the  poet. 
Unfortunately  it  was  worthless. 

The  three  young  men  returned  to  London,  and  each  went  his  own 
way.  Adams's  interest  in  making  friends  was  something  desperate,  but 
"  the  London  season,"  Milnes  used  to  say,  "  is  a  season  for  making 
acquaintances  and  losing  friends ; "  there  was  no  intimate  life.  Of 
Swinburne  he  saw  no  more  till  Monckton  Milnes  summoned  his  whole 


124  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

array  of  Frystonians  to  support  him  in  presiding  at  the  dinner  of  the 
Authors'  Fund,  when  Adams  found  himself  seated  next  to  Swinburne, 
famous  then  but  no  nearer.  They  never  met  again.  Oliphant  he  met 
oftener ;  all  the  world  knew  and  loved  him ;  but  he  too  disappeared  in 
the  way  that  all  the  world  knows.  Stirling  of  Keir,  after  one  or  two 
efforts,  passed  also  from  Adams's  vision  into  Sir  William  Stirling 
Maxwell.  The  only  record  of  his  wonderful  visit  to  Fryston  may 
perhaps  exist  still  in  the  registers  of  the  St.  James's  Club,  for  imme 
diately  afterwards  Milnes  proposed  Henry  Adams  for  membership,  and 
unless  his  memory  erred,  the  nomination  was  seconded  by  Tricoupi 
and  endorsed  by  Lawrence  Oliphant  and  Evelyn  Ashley.  The  list 
was  a  little  singular  for  variety,  but  on  the  whole  it  suggested  that  the 
private  secretary  was  getting  on. 


CHAPTEE    X 

1862 

On  Moran's  promotion  to  be  Secretary,  Mr.  Seward  inquired 
whether  Minister  Adams  would  like  the  place  of  Assistant  Secretary 
for  his  son.  It  was  the  first — and  last — office  ever  offered  him,  if  indeed 
he  could  claim  what  was  offered  in  fact  to  his  father.  To  them  both, 
the  change  seemed  useless.  Any  young  man  could  make  some  sort  of 
Assistant  Secretary ;  only  one,  just  at  that  moment,  could  make  an 
Assistant  Son.  More  than  half  his  duties  were  domestic ;  they  some 
times  required  long  absences ;  they  always  required  independence  of  the 
government  service.  His  position  was  abnormal.  The  British  Govern 
ment  by  courtesy  allowed  the  son  to  go  to  Court  as  Attache,  though  he 
was  never  attached,  and  after  five  or  six  years'  toleration,  the  decision 
was  declared  irregular.  In  the  Legation,  as  Private  Secretary  he  was 
liable  to  do  Secretary's  work.  In  society,  when  official,  he  was  attached 
to  the  Minister ;  when  unofficial,  he  was  a  young  man  without  any 
position  at  all.  As  the  years  went  on,  he  began  to  find  advantages 
in  having  no  position  at  all  except  that  of  young  man.  Gradually  he 
aspired  to  become  a  gentleman  ; — -just  a  member  of  society  like  the  rest. 
The  position  was  irregular ;  at  that  time  many  positions  were  irregular ; 
yet  it  lent  itself  to  a  sort  of  irregular  education  that  seemed  to  be  the 
only  sort  of  education  the  young  man  was  ever  to  get. 

Such  as  it  was,  few  young  men  had  more.  The  spring  and 
summer  of  1863  saw  a  great  change  in  Secretary  Seward's  management 
of  foreign  affairs.  Under  the  stimulus  of  danger,  he  too  got  education. 
He  felt,  at  last,  that  his  official  representatives  abroad  needed  support. 
Officially  he  could  give  them  nothing  but  despatches,  which  were  of  no 
125 


126  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

great  value  to  anyone ;  a,nd  at  best  the  mere  weight  of  an  office  had 
little  to  do  with  the  public.  Governments  were  made  to  deal  with 
governments,  not  with  private  individuals  or  with  the  opinions  of 
foreign  society.  In  order  to  affect  European  opinion,  the  weight  of 
American  opinion  had  to  be  brought  to  bear  personally,  and  had  to  be 
backed  by  the  weight  of  American  interests.  Mr.  Seward  set  vigorously 
to  work  and  sent  over  every  important  American  on  whom  he  could  lay 
his  hands.  All  came  to  the  Legation  more  or  less  intimately,  and 
Henry  Adams  had  a  chance  to  see  them  all,  bankers  or  bishops,  who 
did  their  work  quietly  and  well,  though,  to  the  outsider,  the  work 
seemed  wasted  and  the  "influential  classes"  more  indurated  with  preju 
dice  than  ever.  The  waste  was  only  apparent ;  the  work  all  told  in  the 
end,  and  meanwhile  it  helped  education. 

Two  or  three  of  these  gentlemen  were  sent  over  to  aid  the  Minister 
and  to  cooperate  with  him.  The  most  interesting  of  these  was  Thurlow 
Weed,  who  came  to  do  what  the  private  secretary  himself  had  attempted 
two  years  before,  with  boyish  ignorance  of  his  own  powers.  Mr.  Weed 
took  charge  of  the  press,  and  began,  to  the  amused  astonishment  of  the 
Secretaries,  by  making  what  the  legation  had  learned  to  accept  as  the 
invariable  mistake  of  every  amateur  diplomate ;  he  wrote  letters  to  the 
London  Times.  Mistake  or  not,  Mr.  Weed  soon  got  into  his  hands  the 
threads  of  management,  and  did  quietly  and  smoothly  all  that  was  to  be 
done.  With  his  work,  the  private  secretary  had  no  connection ;  it  was 
he  that  interested.  Thurlow  Weed  was  a  complete  American  education 
in  himself.  His  mind  was  naturally  strong  and  beautifully  balanced ; 
his  temper  never  seemed  ruffled ;  his  manners  were  carefully  perfect  in 
the  style  of  benevolent  simplicity,  the  tradition  of  Benjamin  Franklin. 
He  was  the  model  of  political  management  and  patient  address ;  but  the 
trait  that  excited  enthusiasm  in  a  private  secretary  was  his  faculty  of 
irresistibly  conquering  confidence.  Of  all  flowers  in  the  garden  of  ed 
ucation,  confidence  was  becoming  the  rarest ;  but  before  Mr.  Weed  went 
away,  young  Adams  followed  him  about  not  only  obediently,  —  for 
obedience  had  long  since  become  a  blind  instinct, — but  rather  with 
sympathy  and  affection,  much  like  a  little  dog. 

The  sympathy  was  not  due  only  to  Mr.  Weed's  skill  of  management, 
although  Adams  never  met  another  such  master,  or  anyone  who  ap- 


POLITICAL  MORALITY  127 

proached  him ;  nor  was  the  confidence  due  to  any  display  of  professions, 
either  moral  or  social,  by  Mr.  Weed.  The  trait  that  astounded  and 
confounded  cynicism  was  his  apparent  unselfishness.  Never,  in  any  man 
who  wielded  such  power,  did  Adams  meet  anything  like  it.  The  effect 
of  power  and  publicity  on  all  men  is  the  aggravation  of  self,  a  sort  of 
tumor  that  ends  by  killing  the  victim's  sympathies ;  a  diseased  appetite, 
like  a  passion  for  drink  or  perverted  tastes ;  one  can  scarcely  use  ex 
pressions  too  strong  to  describe  the  violence  of  egotism  it  stimulates ;  and 
Thurlow  Weed  was  one  of  the  exceptions ;  a  rare  immune.  He  thought 
apparently  not  of  himself  but  of  the  person  he  was  talking  with.  He 
held  himself  naturally  in  the  background.  He  was  not  jealous.  He 
grasped  power,  but  not  office.  He  distributed  offices  by  handsful  without 
caring  to  take  them.  He  had  the  instinct  of  empire: — he  gave,  but  he 
did  not  receive.  This  rare  superiority  to  the  politicians  he  controlled,  a 
trait  that  private  secretaries  never  met  in  the  politicians  themselves, 
excited  Adams's  wonder  and  curiosity,  but  when  he  tried  to  get  behind  it, 
and  to  educate  himself  from  the  stores  of  Mr.  Weed's  experience,  he  found 
the  study  still  more  fascinating.  Management  was  an  instinct  with  Mr. 
Weed ;  an  object  to  be  pursued  for  its  own  sake,  as  one  plays  cards ;  but 
he  appeared  to  play  with  men  as  though  they  were  only  cards ;  he 
seemed  incapable  of  feeling  himself  one  of  them.  He  took  them  and 
played  them  for  their  face-value ;  but  once,  when  he  had  told,  with  his 
usual  humor,  some  stories  of  his  political  experience  which  were  strong 
even  for  the  Albany  lobby,  the  private  secretary  made  bold  to  ask  him 
outright:  —  "Then,  Mr.  Weed,  do  you  think  that  no  politican  can  be 
trusted  ? "  Mr.  Weed  hesitated  for  a  moment ;  then  said  in  his  mild 
manner:  —  "I  never  advise  a  young  man  to  begin  by  thinking  so." 

This  lesson,  at  the  time,  translated  itself  to  Adams  in  a  moral  sense, 
as  though  Mr.  Weed  had  said : — Youth  needs  illusions !  As  he  grew 
older  he  rather  thought  that  Mr.  Weed  looked  on  it  as  a  question  of 
how  the  game  should  be  played.  Young  men  most  needed  experience. 
They  could  not  play  well  if  they  trusted  to  a  general  rule.  Every  card 
had  a  relative  value.  Principles  had  better  be  left  aside ;  values  were 
enough.  Adams  knew  that  he  could  never  learn  to  play  politics  in  so 
masterly  a  fashion  as  this ;  his  education  and  his  nervous  system  equally 
forbade  it,  although  he  admired  all  the  more  the  impersonal  faculty  of 


128  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

the  political  master  who  could  thus  efface  himself  and  his  temper  in  the 
game.  He  noticed  that  most  of  the  greatest  politicians  in  history  had 
seemed  to  regard  men  as  counters.  The  lesson  was  the  more  interesting 
because  another  famous  New  Yorker  came  over  at  the  same  time  who 
liked  to  discuss  the  same  problem.  Secretary  Seward  sent  William  M. 
Evarts  to  London  as  law  counsel,  and  Henry  began  an  acquaintance 
with  Mr.  Evarts  that  soon  became  intimate.  Evarts  was  as  individual  as 
Weed  was  impersonal ;  like  most  men,  he  cared  little  for  the  game,  or 
how  it  was  played,  and  much  for  the  stakes,  but  he  played  it  in  a  large 
and  liberal  way,  like  Daniel  Webster,  "  a  great  advocate  employed  in 
politics."  Evarts  was  also  an  economist  of  morals,  but  with  him  the 
question  was  rather  how  much  morality  one  could  afford.  "  The  world 
can  absorb  only  doses  of  truth,"  he  said ;  "  too  much  would  kill  it." 
One  sought  education  in  order  to  adjust  the  dose. 

The  teachings  of  Weed  and  Evarts  were  practical,  and  the  private 
secretary's  life  turned  on  their  value.  England's  power  of  absorbing 
truth  was  small.  Englishmen,  such  as  Palmerston,  Russell,  Bethel,  and 
the  society  represented  by  the  Times  and  Morning  Post,  as  well  as  the 
Tories  represented  by  Disraeli,  Lord  Robert  Cecil  and  the  Standard, 
offered  a  study  in  education  that  sickened  a  young  student  with  anxiety. 
He  had  begun, — contrary  to  Mr.  Weed's  advice, — by  taking  their  bad 
faith  for  granted.  Was  he  wrong?  To  settle  this  point  became  the 
main  object  of  the  diplomatic  education  so  laboriously  pursued,  at  a  cost 
already  stupendous,  and  promising  to  become  ruinous.  Life  changed 
front,  according  as  one  thought  oneself  dealing  with  honest  men  or  with 
rogues. 

Thus  far,  the  private  secretary  felt  officially  sure  of  dishonesty. 
The  reasons  that  satisfied  him  had  not  altogether  satisfied  his  father,  and 
of  course  his  father's  doubts  gravely  shook  his  own  convictions,  but,  in 
practice,  if  only  for  safety,  the  Legation  put  little  or  no  confidence  in 
ministers,  and  there  the  private  secretary's  diplomatic  education  began. 
The  recognition  of  belligerency ;  the  management  of  the  Declaration  of 
Paris ;  the  Trent  Affair,  all  strengthened  the  belief  that  Lord  Russell  had 
started  in  May,  1861,  with  the  assumption  that  the  Confederacy  was 
established ;  every  step  he  had  taken  proved  his  persistence  in  the  same 
idea ;  he  never  would  consent  to  put  obstacles  in  the  way  of  recognition ; 


POLITICAL  MORALITY  129 

and  he  was  waiting  only  for  the  proper  moment  to  interpose.  All  these 
points  seemed  so  fixed, — so  self-evident, — that  no  one  in  the  Legation  would 
have  doubted  or  even  discussed  them  except  that  Lord  Russell  obstinately 
denied  the  whole  charge,  and  persisted  in  assuring  Minister  Adams  of  his 
honest  and  impartial  neutrality. 

With  the  insolence  of  youth  and  zeal,  Henry  Adams  jumped  at  once 
to  the  conclusion  that  Earl  Russell — like  other  statesmen — lied ;  and, 
although  the  Minister  thought  differently,  he  had  to  act  as  though 
Russell  were  false.  Month  by  month  the  demonstration  followed  its 
mathematical  stages ;  one  of  the  most  perfect  educational  courses  in  politics 
and  diplomacy  that  a  young  man  ever  had  a  chance  to  pursue.  The 
most  costly  tutors  in  the  world  were  provided  for  him  at  public  expense : 
— Lord  Palmerston,  Lord  Russell,  Lord  Westbury,  Lord  Selborne,  Mr. 
Gladstone,  Lord  Granville,  and  their  associates,  paid  by  the  British 
Government;  William  H.  Seward,  Charles  Francis  Adams,  William 
Maxwell  Evarts,  Thurlow  Weed,  and  other  considerable  professors 
employed  by  the  American  government ;  but  there  was  only  one  student 
to  profit  by  this  immense  staff  of  teachers.  The  private  secretary  alone 
sought  education. 

To  the  end  of  his  life  he  labored  over  the  lessons  then  taught. 
Never  was  demonstration  more  tangled.  Hegel's  metaphysical  doctrine  of 
the  identity  of  opposites  was  simpler  and  easier  to  understand.  Yet  the 
stages  of  demonstration  were  clear.  They  began  in  June,  1862,  after 
the  escape  of  one  rebel  cruiser,  by  the  remonstrances  of  the  Minister  against 
the  escape  of  "No.  290,"  which  was  imminent.  Lord  Russell  declined 
to  act  on  the  evidence.  New  evidence  was  sent  in  every  few  days,  and 
with  it,  on  July  24,  was  included  Collier's  legal  opinion :  —  "  It  appears 
difficult  to  make  out  a  stronger  case  of  infringement  of  the  Foreign 
Enlistment  Act,  which,  if  not  enforced  on  this  occasion,  is  little  better 
than  a  dead  letter."  Such  language  implied  almost  a  charge  of  collusion 
with  the  rebel  agents, — an  intent  to  aid  the  confederacy.  In  spite  of  the 
warning,  Earl  Russell  let  the  ship,  four  days  afterwards,  escape. 

Young  Adams  had  nothing  to  do  with  law ;  that  was  business  of 
his  betters.  His  opinion  of  law  hung  on  his  opinion  of  lawyers.  In  spite 
of  Thurlow  Weed's  advice,  could  one  afford  to  trust  human  nature  in 
politics  ?  History  said  not.  Sir  Robert  Collier  seemed  to  hold  that  Law 


130  THE   EDUCATION   OF  HENRY    ADAMS 

agreed  with  History.  For  education  the  point  was  vital.  If  one  could 
not  trust  a  dozen  of  the  most  respected  private  characters  in  the  world, 
composing  the  Queen's  Ministry,  one  could  trust  no  mortal  man. 

Lord  Russell  felt  the  force  of  this  inference,  and  undertook  to  dis 
prove  it.  His  effort  lasted  till  his  death.  At  first  he  excused  himself  by 
throwing  the  blame  on  the  law  officers.  This  was  a  politician's  practice, 
and  the  lawyers  overruled  it.  Then  he  pleaded  guilty  to  criminal 
negligence,  and  said  in  his  "Recollections": — "I  assent  entirely  to  the 
opinion  of  the  Lord  Chief  Justice  of  England  that  the  Alabama  ought 
to  have  been  detained  during  the  four  days  I  was  waiting  for  the  opinion 
of  the  law  officers.  But  I  think  that  the  fault  was  not  that  of  the  commis 
sioners  of  customs,  it  was  my  fault  as  Secretary  of  State  for  Foreign 
Affairs."  This  concession  brought  all  parties  on  common  ground.  Of 
course  it  was  his  fault !  The  true  issue  lay  not  in  the  question  of  his 
fault  but  of  his  intent.  To  a  young  man,  getting  an  education  in  politics, 
there  could  be  no  sense  in  history  unless  a  constant  course  of  faults 
implied  a  constant  motive. 

For  his  father  the  question  was  not  so  abstruse ;  it  was  a  practical 
matter  of  business  to  be  handled  as  Weed  or  Evarts  handled  their  bargains 
and  jobs.  Minister  Adams  held  the  convenient  belief  that,  in  the  main, 
Russell  was  true,  and  the  theory  answered  his  purposes  so  well  that  he 
died  still  holding  it.  His  son  was  seeking  education,  and  wanted  to  know 
whether  he  could,  in  politics,  risk  trusting  anyone.  Unfortunately  no  one 
could  then  decide ;  no  one  knew  the  facts.  Minister  Adams  died  without 
knowing  them.  Henry  Adams  was  an  older  man  than  his  father  in 
1862,  before  he  learned  a  part  of  them.  The  most  curious  fact,  even 
then,  was  that  Russell  believed  in  his  own  good  faith  and  that  Argyll 
believed  in  it  also. 

Argyll  betrayed  a  taste  for  throwing  the  blame  on  Bethel,  Lord 
Westbury,  then  Lord  Chancellor,  but  this  escape  helped  Adams  not  at  all. 
On  the  contrary,  it  complicated  the  case  of  Russell.  In  England,  one  half 
of  society  enjoyed  throwing  stones  at  Lord  Palmerston,  while  the  other  half 
delighted  in  flinging  mud  at  Earl  Russell,  but  everyone  of  every  party 
united  in  pelting  Westbury  with  every  missile  at  hand.  The  private 
secretary  had  no  doubts  about  him  for  he  never  professed  to  be  moral. 
He  was  the  head  and  heart  of  the  whole  rebel  contention,  and  his  opinions 


POLITICAL  MORALITY  131 

on  neutrality  were  as  clear  as  they  were  on  morality.  The  private  secretary 
had  nothing  to  do  with  him,  and  regretted  it,  for  Lord  Westbury's  wit  and 
wisdom  were  great;  but  as  far  as  his  authority  went,  he  affirmed  the  law 
that  in  politics  no  man  should  be  trusted. 

Russell  alone  insisted  on  his  honesty  of  intention  and  persuaded 
both  the  Duke  and  the  Minister  to  believe  him.  Everyone  in  the 
Legation  accepted  his  assurances  as  the  only  assertions  they  could 
venture  to  trust.  They  knew  he  expected  the  rebels  to  win  in  the  end, 
but  they  believed  he  would  not  actively  interpose  to  decide  it.  On 
that — on  nothing  else — they  rested  their  frail  hopes  of  remaining  a  day 
longer  in  England.  Minister  Adams  remained  six  years  longer  in 
England ;  then  returned  to  America  to  lead  a  busy  life  till  he  died  in 
1886  still  holding  the  same  faith  in  Earl  Russell,  who  had  died  in  1878. 
In  1889,  Spencer  Walpole  published  the  official  life  of  Earl  Russell,  and 
told  a  part  of  the  story  which  had  never  been  known  to  the  Minister 
and  which  astounded  his  son  who  burned  with  curiosity  to  know 
what  his  father  would  have  said  of  it. 

The  story  was  this:  —  The  Alabama  escaped,  by  Russell's  confessed 
negligence,  on  July  28,  1862.  In  America  the  Union  armies  had  suffered 
great  disasters  before  Richmond  and  at  the  second  Bull  Run,  August 
29-30,  followed  by  Lee's  invasion  of  Maryland,  September  7,  the  news 
of  which,  arriving  in  England  on  September  14,  roused  the  natural  idea 
that  the  crisis  was  at  hand.  The  next  news  was  expected  by  the  Con 
federates  to  announce  the  fall  of  Washington  or  Baltimore.  Palmerston 
instantly,  September  14,  wrote  to  Russell:  —  "If  this  should  happen, 
would  it  not  be  time  for  us  to  consider  whether  in  such  a  state  of  things 
England  and  France  might  not  address  the  contending  parties  and  recom 
mend  an  arrangement  on  the  basis  of  separation?" 

This  letter,  quite  in  the  line  of  Palmerston's  supposed  opinions, 
would  have  surprised  no  one,  if  it  had  been  communicated  to  the 
Legation ;  and  indeed,  if  Lee  had  captured  Washington,  no  one  could 
have  blamed  Palmerston  for  offering  intervention.  Not  Palmerston's 
letter  but  Russell's  reply  merited  the  painful  attention  of  a  young  man 
seeking  a  moral  standard  for  judging  politicians:  — 


132  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

GOTHA,  Sept.  17,  1862. 
MY  DEAK  PALMEESTON: — 

Whether  the  Federal  army  is  destroyed  or  not,  it  is  clear  that  it  is  driven  back  to 
Washington  and  has  made  no  progress  in  subduing  the  insurgent  States.  Such  being  the  case, 
I  agree  with  you  that  the  time  is  come  for  offering  mediation  to  the  United  States  Government 
with  a  view  to  the  recognition  of  the  independence  of  the  Confederates.  I  agree  further  that 
in  case  of  failure,  we  ought  ourselves  to  recognise  the  Southern  States  as  an  independent 
State.  For  the  purpose  of  taking  so  important  a  step,  I  think  we  must  have  a  meeting  of  the 
Cabinet.  The  23d  or  30th  would  suit  me  for  the  meeting. 

We  ought  then,  if  we  agree  on  such  a  step,  to  propose  it  first  to  France,  and  then  on  the 
part  of  England  and  France,  to  Russia  and  other  powers,  as  a  measure  decided  upon  by  us. 

We  ought  to  make  ourselves  safe  in  Canada,  not  by  sending  more  troops  there,  but  by 
concentrating  those  we  have  in  a  few  defensible  posts  before  the  winter  sets  in.  ... 

Here,  then,  appeared  in  its  fullest  force,  the  practical  difficulty  in 
education  which  a  mere  student  could  never  overcome ;  a  difficulty  not  in 
theory,  or  knowledge,  or  even  want  of  experience,  but  in  the  sheer  chaos  of 
human  nature.  Lord  Russell's  course  had  been  consistent  from  the  first, 
and  had  all  the  look  of  rigid  determination  to  recognise  the  southern 
confederacy  "  with  a  view  to "  breaking  up  the  Union.  His  letter  of 
September  17  hung  directly  on  his  encouragement  of  the  "Alabama  "  and 
his  protection  of  the  rebel  navy  ;  while  the  whole  of  his  plan  had  its  root  in 
the  Proclamation  of  Belligerency,  May  13,  1861.  The  policy  had  every 
look  of  persistent  forethought,  but  it  took  for  granted  the  deliberate 
dishonesty  of  three  famous  men: — Palmerston,  Russell  and  Gladstone. 
This  dishonesty,  as  concerned  Russell,  was  denied  by  Russell  himself, 
and  disbelieved  by  Argyll,  Forster  and  most  of  America's  friends  in 
England,  as  well  as  by  Minister  Adams.  What  the  Minister  would 
have  thought  had  he  seen  this  letter  of  September  17,  his  son  would 
have  greatly  liked  to  knew,  but  he  would  have  liked  still  more  to 
know  what  the  Minister  would  have  thought  of  Palmerston's  answer, 
dated  September  23  : — 

...  It  is  evident  that  a  great  conflict  is  taking  place  to  the  north-west  of  Washington, 
and  its  issue  must  have  a  great  effect  on  the  state  of  affairs.  If  the  Federals  sustain  a  great 
defeat  they  may  be  at  once  ready  for  mediation,  and  the  iron  should  be  struck  while  it  is  hot. 
If  on  the  other  hand  they  should  have  the  best  of  it,  we  may  wait  awhile  and  see  what  may 
follow.  . 


POLITICAL   MORALITY  133 

The  roles  were  reversed.  Russell  wrote  what  was  expected  from 
Palmerston,  or  even  more  violently ;  while  Palmerston  wrote  what  was 
expected  from  Russell,  or  even  more  temperately.  The  private  secretary's 
view  had  been  altogether  wrong,  which  would  not  have  much  surprised  even 
him,  but  he  would  have  been  greatly  astonished  to  learn  that  the  most 
confidential  associates  of  these  men  knew  little  more  about  their  intentions 
than  was  known  in  the  Legation.  The  most  trusted  member  of  the 
cabinet  was  Lord  Granville,  and  to  him  Russell  next  wrote.  Granville 
replied  at  once  decidedly  opposing  recognition  of  the  Confederacy,  and 
Russell  sent  the  reply  to  Palmerston,  who  returned  it  October  2,  with  the 
mere  suggestion  of  waiting  for  further  news  from  America.  At  the  same 
time  Granville  wrote  to  another  member  of  the  cabinet,  Lord  Stanley  of 
Alderley,  a  letter  published  forty  years  afterwards  in  Granville's  Life 
(i,  442) ; — to  the  private  secretary  altogether  the  most  curious  and  instruc 
tive  relic  of  the  whole  lesson  in  politics: — 

...  I  have  written  to  Johnny  my  reasons  for  thinking  it  decidedly  premature.  I  how 
ever  suspect  you  will  settle  to  do  so.  Pam. ,  Johnny  and  Gladstone  would  be  in  favor  of  it, 
and  probably  Newcastle.  I  do  not  know  about  the  others.  It  appears  to  me  a  great 
mistake.  .  .  . 

Out  of  a  cabinet  of  a  dozen  members,  Granville,  the  best  informed  of 
them  all,  could  pick  only  three  who  would  favor  recognition.  Even  a 
private  secretary  thought  he  knew  as  much  as  this,  or  more.  Ignorance 
was  not  confined  to  the  young  and  insignificant,  nor  were  they  the  only 
victims  of  blindness.  Granville's  letter  made  only  one  point  clear.  He 
knew  of  no  fixed  policy  or  conspiracy.  If  any  existed,  it  was  confined 
to  Palmerston,  Russell,  Gladstone,  and  perhaps  Newcastle.  In  truth,  the 
Legation  knew,  then,  all  that  was  to  be  known,  and  the  true  fault  of 
education  was  to  suspect  too  much. 

By  that  time,  October  3,  news  of  Antietam  and  of  Lee's  retreat  into 
Virginia  had  reached  London.  The  Emancipation  Proclamation  arrived. 
Had  the  private  secretary  known  all  that  Granville  or  Palmerston  knew, 
he  would  surely  have  thought  the  danger  past,  at  least  for  a  time,  and 
any  man  of  common  sense  would  have  told  him  to  stop  worrying  over 
phantoms.  This  healthy  lesson  would  have  been  worth  much  for 


134  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

practical  education,  but  it  was  quite  upset  by  the  sudden  rush  of  a  new 
actor  upon  the  stage  with  a  rhapsody  that  made  Russell  seem  sane,  and 
all  education  superfluous. 

This  new  actor,  as  everyone  knows,  was  William  Ewart  Gladstone, 
then  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer.  If,  in  the  domain  of  the  world's 
politics,  one  point  was  fixed,  one  value  ascertained,  one  element  serious, 
it  was  the  British  Exchequer ;  and  if  one  man  lived  who  could  be  certainly 
counted  as  sane  by  overwhelming  interest,  it  was  the  man  who  had  in 
charge  the  finances  of  England.  If  education  had  the  smallest  value,  it 
should  have  shown  its  force  in  Gladstone,  who  was  educated  beyond  all 
record  of  English  training.  From  him,  if  from  no  one  else,  the  poor 
student  could  safely  learn. 

Here  is  what  he  learned!  Palmerston  notified  Gladstone,  September 
24,  of  the  proposed  intervention : — "  If  I  am  not  mistaken,  you  would 
be  inclined  to  approve  such  a  course."  Gladstone  replied  the  next  day. 
"  He  was  glad  to  learn  what  the  prime  minister  had  told  him ;  and 
for  two  reasons  especially  he  desired  that  the  proceedings  should  be 
prompt: — the  first  was  the  rapid  progress  of  the  southern  arms  and  the 
extension  of  the  area  of  southern  feeling;  the  second  was  the  risk  of 
violent  impatience  in  the  cotton-towns  of  Lancashire  such  as  would 
prejudice  the  dignity  and  disinterestedness  of  the  proffered  mediation." 

Had  the  puzzled  student  seen  this  letter,  he  must  have  concluded 
from  it  that  the  best  educated  statesman  England  ever  produced  did  not 
know  what  he  was  talking  about,  an  assumption  which  all  the  world 
would  think  quite  inadmissible  from  a  private  secretary ; — but  this  was 
a  trifle.  Gladstone  having  thus  arranged,  with  Palmerston  and  Russell, 
for  intervention  in  the  American  war,  reflected  on  the  subject  for  a 
fortnight,  from  September  25  to  October  7,  when  he  was  to  speak  on 
the  occasion  of  a  great  dinner  at  Newcastle.  He  decided  to  announce 
the  government's  policy  with  all  the  force  his  personal  and  official 
authority  could  give  it.  This  decision  was  no  sudden  impulse;  it  was 
the  result  of  deep  reflection  pursued  to  the  last  moment.  On  the 
morning  of  October  7,  he  entered  in  his  diary : — "  Reflected  further  on 
what  I  should  say  about  Lancashire  and  America,  for  both  these  subjects 
are  critical."  That  evening  at  dinner,  as  the  mature  fruit  of  his  long 
study,  he  deliberately  pronounced  the  famous  phrase: — 


POLITICAL  MORALITY  135 

....  We  know  quite  well  that  the  people  of  the  Northern  States  have  uot  yet 
drunk  of  the  cup,  —  they  are  still  trying  to  hold  it  far  from  their  lips,  —  which  all  the 
rest  of  the  world  see  they  nevertheless  must  drink  of.  We  may  have  our  own  opinions 
about  slavery  ;  we  may  be  for  or  against  the  South  ;  but  there  is  no  doubt  that  Jefferson 
Davis  and  other  leaders  of  the  South  have  made  an  army  ;  they  are  making,  it  appears, 
a  navy  ;  and  they  have  made,  what  is  more  than  either,  they  have  made  a  nation.  .  .  . 

Looking  back,  forty  years  afterwards,  on  this  episode,  one  asked 
oneself  painfully  what  sort  of  a  lesson  a  young  man  should  have  drawn 
for  the  purposes  of  his  education,  from  this  world-famous  teaching  of  a 
very  great  master.  In  the  heat  of  passion  at  the  moment,  one  drew 
some  harsh  moral  conclusions: — Were  they  incorrect?  Posed  bluntly 
as  rules  of  conduct,  they  led  to  the  worst  possible  practices.  As  morals, 
one  could  detect  no  shade  of  difference  between  Gladstone  and  Napoleon 
except  to  the  advantage  of  Napoleon.  The  private  secretary  saw  none ; 
he  accepted  the  teacher  in  that  sense ;  he  took  his  lesson  of  political 
morality  as  learned,  his  notice  to  quit  as  duly  served,  and  supposed 
his  education  to  be  finished. 

Everyone  thought  so,  and  the  whole  City  was  in  a  turmoil.  Any 
intelligent  education  ought  to  end  when  it  is  complete.  One  would 
then  feel  fewer  hesitations  and  would  handle  a  surer  world.  The  old- 
fashioned  logical  drama  required  unity  and  sense ;  the  actual  drama  is 
a  pointless  puzzle,  without  even  an  intrigue.  When  the  curtain  fell  on 
Gladstone's  speech,  any  student  had  the  right  to  suppose  the  drama 
ended ;  none  could  have  affirmed  .that  it  was  about  to  begin ;  that  one's 
painful  lesson  was  thrown  away. 

Even  after  forty  years,  most  people  would  refuse  to  believe  it ;  they 
would  still  insist  that  Gladstone,  Russell  and  Palmerston  were  true 
villains  of  melodrama.  The  evidence  against  Gladstone  in  special  seemed 
overwhelming.  The  word  "  must "  can  never  be  used  by  a  responsible 
minister  of  one  government  towards  another,  as  Gladstone  used  it.  No 
one  knew  so  well  as  he  that  he  and  his  own  officials  and  friends  at 
Liverpool  were  alone  "  making "  a  rebel  navy,  and  that  Jefferson  Davis 
had  next  to  nothing  to  do  with  it.  As  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  he 
was  the  minister  most  interested  in  knowing  that  Palmerston,  Russell 
and  himself  were  banded  together  by  mutual  pledge  to  make  the  Con 
federacy  a  nation  the  next  week,  and  that  the  southern  leaders  had  as 


136  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

yet  no  hope  of  "  making  a  nation  "  but  in  them.  Such  thoughts  occurred 
to  everyone  at  the  moment,  and  time  only  added  to  their  force.  Never 
in  the  history  of  political  turpitude  had  any  brigand  of  modern  civilisation 
offered  a  worse  example.  The  proof  of  it  was  that  it  outraged  even 
Palmerston,  who  immediately  put  up  Sir  George  Cornewall  Lewis  to 
repudiate  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  against  whom  he  turned  his 
press  at  the  same  time,  Palmerston  had  no  notion  of  letting  his  hand 
be  forced  by  Gladstone. 

Russell  did  nothing  of  the  kind ;  if  he  agreed  with  Palmerston, 
he  followed  Gladstone.  Although  he  must  have  known  that  the  Cabinet 
would  offer  much  opposition  to  his  scheme,  he  persisted,  and,  on  October 
13,  issued  his  call  for  the  cabinet  to  meet,  on  October  23,  for  discussion 
of  the  "duty  of  Europe  to  ask  both  parties,  in  the  most  friendly  and 
conciliatory  terms,  to  agree  to  a  suspension  of  arms."  Meanwhile  Minister 
Adams,  deeply  perturbed  and  profoundly  anxious,  would  betray  no  sign 
of  alarm,  and  purposely  delayed  to  ask  explanation.  The  howl  of  anger 
against  Gladstone  became  louder  every  day,  for  everyone  knew  that  the 
cabinet  was  called  for  October  23,  and  then  could  not  fail  to  decide  its 
policy  about  the  United  States.  Lord  Lyons  put  off  his  departure  for 
America  till  October  25  expressly  to  share  in  the  conclusions  to  be  discussed 
on  October  23.  When  Minister  Adams  at  last  requested  an  interview, 
Russell  named  October  23  as  the  day.  To  the  last  moment  every  act  of 
Russell  showed  that,  in  his  mind,  the  intervention  was  still  in  doubt. 

When  Minister  Adams,  at  the  interview,  suggested  that  an  explanation 
was  due  him,  he  watched  Russell  with  natural  interest,  and  reported  thus  : — 

....  His  lordship  took  my  allusion  at  once,  though  not  without  a  slight  indication  of 
embarrassment.  He  said  that  Mr.  Gladstone  had  been  evidently  much  misunderstood.  I 
must  have  seen  in  the  newspapers  the  letters  which  contained  his  later  explanations.  That  he 
had  certain  opinions  in  regard  to  the  nature  of  the  struggle  in  America,  as  on  all  public 
questions,  just  as  other  Englishmen  had,  was  natural  enough.  And  it  was  the  fashion  here 
for  public  men  to  express  such  as  they  held  in  their  public  addresses.  Of  course  it  was 
not  for  him  to  disavow  anything  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Gladstone  ;  but  he  had  no  idea  that  in 
saying  what  he  had,  there  was  a  serious  intention  to  justify  any  of  the  inferences  that  had 
been  drawn  from  it  of  a  disposition  in  the  government  now  to  adopt  a  new  policy.  .  .  . 


POLITICAL  MORALITY  137 

A  student  trying  to  learn  the  processes  of  politics  in  a  free  government 
could  not  but  ponder  long  on  the  moral  to  be  drawn  from  this  "explanation" 
of  Mr.  Gladstone  by  Earl  Russell.  The  point  set  for  study  as  the  first 
condition  of  political  life,  was  whether  any  politician  could  be  believed  or 
trusted.  The  question  which  a  private  secretary  asked  himself,  in  copying 
this  despatch  of  October  24,  1862,  was  whether  his  father  believed,  or  should 
believe,  one  word  of  Lord  Russell's  "  embarrassment."  The  "  truth  "  was 
not  known  for  thirty  years,  but  when  published,  seemed  to  be  the  reverse 
of  Earl  Russell's  statement.  Mr.  Gladstone's  speech  had  been  drawn  out 
by  Russell's  own  policy  of  intervention  and  had  no  sense  except  to  declare 
the  "  disposition  in  the  government  now  to  adopt "  that  new  policy. 
Earl  Russell  never  disavowed  Gladstone,  although  Lord  Palmerston  and 
Sir  George  Cornewall  Lewis  instantly  did  so.  As  far  as  a  curious  student 
could  penetrate  the  mystery,  Gladstone  exactly  expressed  Earl  Russell's 
intent. 

As  political  education,  this  lesson  was  to  be  crucial ;  it  would  decide 
the  law  of  life.  All  these  gentlemen  were  superlatively  honorable ;  if 
one  could  not  believe  them,  Truth  in  politics  might  be  ignored  as  a 
delusion.  Therefore  the  student  felt  compelled  to  reach  some  sort  of  idea 
that  should  serve  to  bring  the  case  within  a  general  law.  Minister 
Adams  felt  the  same  compulsion.  He  bluntly  told  Russell  that  while  he 
was  "  willing  to  acquit "  Gladstone  of  "  any  deliberate  intention  to  bring 
on  the  worst  effects,"  he  was  bound  to  say  that  Gladstone  was  doing  it 
quite  as  certainly  as  if  he  had  one ;  and  to  this  charge,  which  struck 
more  sharply  at  Russell's  secret  policy  than  at  Gladstone's  public  defence 
of  it,  Russell  replied  as  well  as  he  could : — 

.  .  .  His  lordship  intimated  as  guardedly  as  possible  that  Lord  Palmerston  and  other 
members  of  the  government  regretted  the  speech,  and  Mr.  Gladstone  himself  was  not  disin 
clined  to  correct,  as  far  as  he  could,  the  misinterpretation  which  had  been  made  of  it.  It  was 
still  their  intention  to  adhere  to  the  rule  of  perfect  neutrality  in  the  struggle,  and  to  let  it  come 
to  its  natural  end  without  the  smallest  interference,  direct  or  otherwise.  But  he  could  not  say 
what  circumstances  might  happen  from  month  to  month  in  the  future.  I  observed  that  the 
policy  he  mentioned  was  satisfactory  to  us,  and  asked  if  I  was  to  understand  him  as  saying 
that  no  change  of  it  was  now  proposed.  To  which  he  gave  his  assent.  .  .  . 


138  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

Minister  Adams  never  knew  more.  He  retained  his  belief  that 
Russell  could  be  trusted,  but  that  Palmerston  could  not.  This  was  the 
diplomatic  tradition,  especially  held  by  the  Russian  diplomates.  Possibly 
it  was  sound  but  it  helped  in  no  way  the  education  of  a  private 
secretary.  The  cat's-paw  theory  offered  no  safer  clue  than  the  frank,  old- 
fashioned,  honest  theory  of  villainy.  Neither  the  one  nor  the  other  was 
reasonable. 

No  one  ever  told  the  Minister  tha,t  Earl  Russell,  only  a  few  hours 
before  had  asked  the  Cabinet  to  intervene,  and  that  the  Cabinet  had 
refused.  The  Minister  was  led  to  believe  that  the  Cabinet  meeting  was 
not  held,  and  that  its  decision  was  informal.  Russell's  biographer  said 
that, —  "with  this  memorandum  [of  Russell's,  dated  October  13]  the 
Cabinet  assembled  from  all  parts  of  the  country  on  October  23 ;  but 
.  .  .  members  of  the  Cabinet  doubted  the  policy  of  moving,  or  moving  at 
that  time."  The  Duke  of  Newcastle  and  Sir  George  Grey  joined  Gran- 
ville  in  opposition.  As  far  as  known,  Russell  and  Gladstone  stood  alone. 
"  Considerations  such  as  these  prevented  the  matter  being  pursued  any 
further." 

Still  no  one  has  distinctly  said  that  this  decision  was  formal ;  perhaps 
the  unanimity  of  opposition  made  the  formal  cabinet  unnecessary ;  but  it 
is  certain  that,  within  an  hour  or  two  before  or  after  this  decision,  '•'  his 
lordship  said  [to  the  United  States  Minister]  that  the  policy  of  the 
government  was  to  adhere  to  a  strict  neutrality  and  to  leave  this  struggle 
to  settle  itself."  When  Mr.  Adams,  not  satisfied  even  with  this  positive 
assurance,  pressed  for  a  categorical  answer :  —  "I  asked  him  if  I  was 
to  understand  that  policy  as  not  now  to  be  changed ;  he  said :  —  Yes ! " 

John  Morley's  comment  on  this  matter,  in  the  life  of  Gladstone, 
forty  years  afterwards,  would  have  interested  the  Minister,  as  well  as 
his  private  secretary: — "If  this  relation  be  accurate,"  said  Morley  of  a 
relation  officially  published  at  the  time,  and  never  questioned,  "then  the 
Foreign  Secretary  did  not  construe  strict  neutrality  as  excluding  what 
diplomatists  call  good  offices."  For  a  vital  lesson  in  politics,  Earl  Rus 
sell's  construction  of  neutrality  mattered  little  to  the  student,  who  asked 
only  Russell's  intent,  and  cared  only  to  know  whether  his  construction 
had  any  other  object  than  to  deceive  the  Minister. 

In   the   grave   one   can   afford   to   be  lavish  of  charity,  and  possibly 


POLITICAL   MORALITY  139 

Earl  Russell  may  have  been  honestly  glad  to  reassure  his  personal  friend 
Mr.  Adams;  but  to  one  who  is  still  in  the  world  even  if  not  of  it, 
doubts  are  as  plenty  as  days.  Earl  Russell  totally  deceived  the  private 
secretary,  whatever  he  may  have  done  to  the  Minister.  The  policy  of 
abstention  was  not  settled  on  October  23.  Only  the  next  day,  October 
24,  Gladstone  circulated  a  rejoinder  to  G.  C.  Lewis,  insisting  on  the 
duty  of  England,  France  and  Russia  to  intervene  by  representing  "with 
moral  authority  and  force,  the  opinion  of  the  civilized  world  upon  the 
conditions  of  the  case."  Nothing  had  been  decided.  By  some  means, 
scarcely  accidental,  the  French  Emperor  was  led  to  think  that  his  in 
fluence  might  turn  the  scale,  and  only  ten  days  after  Russell's  categorical 
'  Yes  !  "  Napoleon  officially  invited  him  to  say  "  No  !  "  He  was  more 
than  ready  to  do  so.  Another  Cabinet  meeting  was  called  for  Novem 
ber  11,  and  this  .time  Gladstone  himself  reports  the  debate : — 

"Nov.  11.  We  have  had  our  Cabinet  to-day  and  meet  again  to-morrow.  I  am 
afraid  we  shall  do  little  or  nothing  in  the  business  of  America.  But  I  will  send  you 
definite  intelligence.  Both  Lords  Palmerston  and  Russell  are  right. 

"Nov.  12.  The  United  States  affair  has  ended  and  not  well.  Lord  Russell  rather 
turned  tail.  He  gave  way  without  resolutely  fighting  out  his  battle.  However,  though 
we  decline  for  the  moment,  the  answer  is  put  upon  grounds  and  in  terms  which  leave 
the  matter  very  open  for  the  future. 

"Nov.  13.  I  think  the  French  will  make  our  answer  about  America  public;  at 
least  it  is  very  possible.  But  I  hope  they  may  not  take  it  as  a  positive  refusal,  or  at 
any  rate  that  they  may  themselves  act  in  the  matter.  It  will  be  clear  that  we  concur 
with  them  that  the  war  should  cease.  Palmerston  gave  to  Russell's  proposal  a  feeble 
and  half-hearted  support." 

Forty  years  afterwards,  when  everyone  except  himself,  who  looked 
on  at  this  scene,  was  dead,  the  private  secretary  of  1862  read  these 
lines  with  stupor,  and  hurried  to  discuss  then  with  John  Hay  who  was 
more  astounded  than  himself.  All  the  world  had  been  at  cross-purposes, 
had  misunderstood  themselves  and  the  situation,  had  followed  wrong 
paths,  drawn  wrong  conclusions,  and  had  known  none  of  the  facts. 
One  would  have  done  better  to  draw  no  conclusions  at  all.  One's 
diplomatic  education  was  a  long  mistake. 


140  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

These  were  the  terms  of  this  singular  problem  as  they  presented 
themselves  to  the  student  of  diplomacy  in  1862 : — Palmerston,  on  Sep 
tember  14  under  the  impression  that  the  President  was  about  to  be 
driven  from  Washington  and  the  army  of  the  Potomac  dispersed, 
suggested  to  Russell  that  in  such  a  case,  intervention  might  be  feasible. 
Russell  instantly  answered  that,  in  any  case,  he  wanted  to  intervene  and 
should  call  a  cabinet  for  the  purpose.  Palmerston  hesitated ;  Russell 
insisted ;  Granville  protested.  Meanwhile  the  rebel  army  was  defeated 
at  Antietam,  September  17,  and  driven  out  of  Maryland.  Then  Gladstone, 
October  7,  tried  to  force  Palmerston's  hand  by  treating  the  intervention 
as  a  fait  accompli.  Russell  assented,  but  Palmerston  put  up  Sir  George 
Cornewall  Lewis  to  contradict  Gladstone  and  treated  him  sharply  in  the 
press,  at  the  very  moment  when  Russell  was  calling  a  cabinet  to  make 
Gladstone's  words  good.  On  October  23,  Russell  assured  Adams  that 
no  change  in  policy  was  now  proposed.  On  the  same  day  he  had 
proposed  it,  and  was  voted  down.  Instantly  Napoleon  III  appeared 
as  the  ally  of  Russell  and  Gladstone  with  a  proposition  which  had  no 
sense  except  as  a  bribe  to  Palmerston  to  replace  America,  from  pole  to 
pole,  in  her  old  dependence  on  Europe,  and  to  replace  England  in  her 
old  sovereignty  of  the  seas,  if  Palmerston  would  support  France  in 
Mexico.  The  young  student  of  diplomacy,  knowing  Palmerston,  must 
have  taken  for  granted  that  Palmerston  inspired  this  motion  and  would 
support  it; — knowing  Russell  and  his  Whig  antecedents,  he  would 
conceive  that  Russell  must  oppose  it ; — knowing  Gladstone  and  his 
lofty  principles,  he  would  not  doubt  that  Gladstone  violently  denounced 
the  scheme.  If  education  was  worth  a  straw,  this  was  the  only  arrange 
ment  of  persons  that  a  trained  student  would  imagine  possible,  and  it 
was  the  arrangement  actually  assumed  by  nine  men  out  of  ten,  as 
history.  In  truth,  each  valuation  was  false.  Palmerston  never  showed 
favor  to  the  scheme  and  gave  it  only  "a  feeble  and  half-hearted 
support."  Russell  gave  way  without  resolutely  fighting  out  "  his 
battle."  The  only  resolute,  vehement,  conscientious  champion  of  Rus 
sell,  Napoleon  and  Jefferson  Davis  was  Gladstone. 

Other  people  could  afford  to  laugh  at  a  young  man's  blunders,  but 
to  him  the  best  part  of  life  was  thrown  away  if  he  learned  such  a 
lesson  wrong.  Henry  James  had  not  yet  taught  the  world  to  read  a 


POLITICAL  MORALITY  141 

volume  for  the  pleasure  of  seeing  the  lights  of  his  burning  glass  turned 
on  alternate  sides  of  the  same  figure.  Psychological  study  was  still 
simple,  and  at  worst — or  at  best — English  character  was  never  subtile. 
Surely  no  one  would  believe  that  complexity  was  the  trait  that  confused 
the  student  of  Palmerston,  Russell  and  Gladstone.  Under  a  very  strong 
light  human  nature  will  always  appear  complex  and  full  of  contradictions, 
but  the  British  statesman  would  appear,  on  the  whole,  among  the  least 
complex  of  men. 

Complex  these  gentlemen  were  not.  Disraeli  alone  might  by  contrast, 
be  called  complex,  but  Palmerston,  Russell  and  Gladstone  deceived  only 
by  their  simplicity.  Russell  was  the  most  interesting  to  a  young  man 
because  his  conduct  seemed  most  statesmanlike.  Every  act  of  Russell, 
from  April,  1861,  to  November,  1862,  showed  the  clearest  determination 
to  break  up  the  Union.  The  only  point  in  Russell's  character  about 
which  the  student  thought  no  doubt  to  be  possible  was  its  want  of  good 
faith.  It  was  thoroughly  dishonest  but  strong.  Habitually  Russell  said 
one  thing  and  did  another.  He  seemed  unconscious  of  his  own  contradictions 
even  when  his  opponents  pointed  them  out,  as  they  were  much  in  the 
habit  of  doing,  in  the  strongest  language.  As  the  student  watched  him 
deal  with  the  Civil  War  in  America,  Russell  alone  showed  persistence,  even 
obstinacy,  in  a  definite  determination,  which  he  supported,  as  was 
necessary,  by  the  usual  definite  falsehoods.  The  young  man  did  not 
complain  of  the  falsehoods ;  on  the  contrary,  he  was  vain  of  his  own 
insight  in  detecting  them ;  but  he  was  wholly  upset  by  the  idea  that 
Russell  should  think  himself  true. 

Young  Adams  thought  Earl  Russell  a  statesman  of  the  old  school, 
clear  about  his  objects  and  unscrupulous  in  his  methods, — dishonest  but 
strong.  Russell  ardently  asserted  that  he  had  no  objects,  and  that  though 
he  might  be  weak  he  was  above  all  else  honest.  Minister  Adams  leaned 
to  Russell  personally  and  thought  him  true,  but  officially,  in  practice, 
treated  him  as  false.  Punch,  before  1862,  commonly  drew  Russell  as  a 
schoolboy  telling  lies,  and  afterwards  as  prematurely  senile,,  at  seventy. 
Education  stopped  there.  No  one,  either  in  or  out  of  England,  ever 
offered  a  rational  explanation  of  Earl  Russell. 

Palmerston  was  simple, — so  simple  as  to  mislead  the  student  altogether, 
— but  scarcely  more  consistent.  The  world  thought  him  positive,  decided, 


142  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

reckless ;  the  record  proved  him  to  be  cautious,  careful,  vacillating. 
Minister  Adams  took  him  for  pugnacious  and  quarrelsome ;  the  Lives  of 
Russell,  Gladstone  and  Granville  show  him  to  have  been  good-tempered, 
conciliatory,  avoiding  quarrels.  He  surprised  the  Minister  by  refusing  to 
pursue  his  attack  on  General  Butler.  He  tried  to  check  Russell.  He 
scolded  Gladstone.  He  discouraged  Napoleon.  Except  Disraeli  none 
of  the  English  statesmen  were  so  cautious  as  he  in  talking  of  America. 
Palmerston  told  no  falsehoods ;  made  no  professions ;  concealed  no  opinions  ; 
was  detected  in  no  double-dealing.  The  most  mortifying  failure  in  Henry 
Adams's  long  education  was  that,  after  forty  years  of  confirmed  dislike, 
distrust  and  detraction  of  Lord  Palmerston,  he  was  obliged  at  last  to 
admit  himself  in  error,  and  to  consent  in  spirit, — for  by  that  time  he 
was  nearly  as  dead  as  any  of  them, — to  beg  his  pardon. 

Gladstone  was  quite  another  story,  but  with  him  a  student's  difficulties 
were  less  because  they  were  shared  by  all  the  world,  including  Gladstone 
himself.  He  was  the  sum  of  contradictions.  The  highest  education  could 
reach,  in  this  analysis,  only  a  reduction  to  the  absurd,  but  no  absurdity 
that  a  young  man  could  reach  in  1862  would  have  approached  the  level 
that  Mr.  Gladstone  admitted,  avowed,  proclaimed,  in  his  confessions  of 
1896,  which  brought  all  reason  and  all  hope  of  education  to  a  still-stand : — 

"  I  have  yet  to  record  an  undoubted  error,  the  most  singular  and  palpable,  I  may  add 
the  least  excusable  of  them  all,  especially  since  it  was  committed  so  late  as  in  the  year  1862 

when  I  had  outlived  half  a  century I  declared  in  the  heat  of  the  American  struggle 

that  Jefferson  Davis  had  made  a  nation.  .  .  .  Strange  to  say,  this  declaration,  most  unwar 
rantable  to  be  made  by  a  minister  of  the  crown  with  no  authority  other  than  his  own,  was  not 
due  to  any  feeling  of  partisanship  for  the  South  or  hostility  to  the  North,  ....  I  really, 
though  most  strangely,  believed  that  it  was  an  act  of  friendliness  to  all  America  to  recognise 

that  the  struggle  was  virtually  at  an  end That  my  opinion  was  founded  upon  a  false 

estimate  of  the  facts  was  the  very  least  part  of  my  fault.  I  did  not  perceive  the  gross  impro 
priety  of  such  an  utterance  from  a  cabinet  minister  of  a  power  allied  in  blood  and  language, 
and  bound  to  loyal  neutrality  ;  the  case  being  further  exaggerated  by  the  fact  that  we  were 
already,  so  to  speak,  under  indictment  before  the  world  for  not  (as  was  alleged)  having 
strictly  enforced  the  laws  of  neutrality  in  the  matter  of  the  cruisers.  My  offense  was  indeed 
only  a  mistake,  but  one  of  incredible  grossness,  and  with  such  consequences  of  offence  and 
alarm  attached  to  it,  that  my  failing  to  perceive  them  justly  exposed  me  to  very  severe  blame. 
It  illustrates  vividly  that  incapacity  which  my  mind  so  long  retained,  and  perhaps  still  exhibits, 
an  incapacity  of  viewing  subjects  all  round " 


POLITICAL   MORALITY  143 

Long  and  patiently, —  more  than  patiently, — sympathetically,  did  the 
private  secretary,  forty  years  afterwards,  in  the  twilight  of  a  life  of  study, 
read  and  re-read  and  reflect  upon  this  confession.  Then,  it  seemed,  he 
had  seen  nothing  correctly  at  the  time.  His  whole  theory  of  conspiracy, 
— of  policy, — of  logic  and  connection  in  the  affairs  of  man,  resolved  itself 
into  "incredible  grossness."  He  felt  no  rancor,  for  he  had  won  the  game; 
he  forgave,  since  he  must  admit,  the  "incapacity  of  viewing  subjects  all 
round  "  which  had  so  nearly  cost  him  his  life  and  fortune ;  he  was  willing 
even  to  believe.  He  noted,  without  irritation,  that  Mr.  Gladstone,  in 
his  confession,  had  not  alluded  to  the  understanding  between  Russell, 
Palmerston  and  himself;  had  even  wholly  left  out  his  most  "incredible" 
act,  his  ardent  support  of  Napoleon's  policy,  a  policy  which  even  Palmers- 
ton  and  Russell  had  supported  feebly,  with  only  half  a  heart.  All  this 
was  indifferent.  Granting,  in  spite  of  evidence,  that  Gladstone  had  no  set 
plan  of  breaking  up  the  Union  ;  that  he  was  party  to  no  conspiracy ;  that  he 
saw  none  of  the  results  of  his  acts  which  were  clear  to  everyone  else ; 
granting  in  short  what  the  English  themselves  seemed  at  last  to  conclude  : — 
that  Gladstone  was  not  quite  sane ;  that  Russell  was  verging  on  senility  ; 
and  that  Palmerston  had  lost  his  nerve ;  what  sort  of  education  should 
have  been  the  result  of  it?  How  should  it  have  affected  one's  future 
opinions  and  acts? 

Politics  cannot  stop  to  study  psychology.  Its  methods  are  rough ;  its 
judgments  rougher  still.  All  this  knowledge  would  not  have  affected 
either  the  minister  or  his  son  in  1862.  The  sum  of  the  individuals 
would  still  have  seemed,  to  the  young  man,  one  individual,  —  a  single 
will  or  intention, —  bent  on  breaking  up  the  Union  "as  a  diminution  of 
a  dangerous  power."  The  Minister  would  still  have  found  his  interest  in 
thinking  Russell  friendly  and  Palmerston  hostile.  The  individual  would 
still  have  been  identical  with  the  mass.  The  problem  would  have  been 
the  same ;  the  answer  equally  obscure.  Every  student  would,  like  the 
private  secretary,  answer  for  himself  alone. 


CHAPTER    XI 

1863 

Minister  Adams  troubled  himself  little  about  what  he  did  not  see  of 
an  enemy.  His  son,  a  nervous  animal,  made  life  a  terror  by  seeing  too 
much.  Minister  Adams  played  his  hand  as  it  came,  and  seldom  credited 
his  opponents  with  greater  intelligence  than  his  own.  Earl  Russell  suited 
him ;  perhaps  a  certain  personal  sympathy  united  them,  and  indeed  Henry 
Adams  never  saw  Russell  without  being  amused  by  his  droll  likeness  to 
John  Quincy  Adams.  Apart  from  this  shadowy  personal  relation,  no  doubt 
the  minister  was  diplomatically  right ;  he  had  nothing  to  lose  and  everything 
to  gain  by  making  a  friend  of  the  Foreign  Secretary,  and  whether  Russell 
were  true  or  false  mattered  less,  because,  in  either  case,  the  American 
Legation  could  act  only  as  though  he  were  false.  Had  the  Minister  known 
Russell's  determined  effort  to  betray  and  ruin  him  in  October,  1862,  he 
could  have  scarcely  used  stronger  expressions  than  he  did  in  1863. 
Russell  must  have  been  greatly  annoyed  by  Sir  Robert  Collier's  hint  of 
collusion  with  the  rebel  agents  in  the  Alabama  Case,  but  he  hardened 
himself  to  hear  the  same  innuendo  repeated  in  nearly  every  note  from 
the  Legation.  As  time  went  on,  Russell  was  compelled,  though  slowly,  to 
treat  the  American  Minister  as  serious.  He  admitted  nothing  so  unwillingly, 
for  the  nullity  or  fatuity  of  the  Washington  government  was  his  idee  fixe ; 
but  after  the  failure  of  his  last  effort  for  joint  intervention  on  November 
12,  1862,  only  one  week  elapsed  before  he  received  a  note  from  Minister 
Adams  repeating  his  charges  about  the  Alabama,  and  asking  in  very  plain 
language  for  redress.  Perhaps  Russell's  mind  was  naturally  slow  to 
understand  the  force  of  sudden  attack,  or  perhaps  age  had  affected  it ;  this 
was  one  of  the  points  that  greatly  interested  a  student,  but  young  men 
144 


THE  BATTLE  OF  THE  RAMS  145 

have  a  passion  for  regarding  their  elders  as  senile,  which  was  only  in  part 
warranted  in  this  instance  by  observing  that  Russell's  generation  were 
mostly  senile  from  youth.  They  had  never  got  beyond  1815.  Both 
Palmerston  and  Russell  were  in  this  case.  Their  senility  was  congenital, 
like  Gladstone's  Oxford  training  and  High  Church  illusions,  which  caused 
wild  eccentricities  in  his  judgment.  Russell  could  not  conceive  that  he 
had  misunderstood  and  mismanaged  Minister  Adams  from  the  start,  and 
fc  when,  after  November  12,  he  found  himself  on  the  defensive,  with  Mr. 

Adams   taking   daily   a   stronger    tone,   he    showed    mere    confusion   and 
helplessness. 

Thus,  whatever  the  theory,  the  action  of  diplomacy  had  to  be  the 
same.  Minister  Adams  was  obliged  to  imply  collusion  between  Russell 
and  the  rebels.  He  could  not  even  stop  at  criminal  negligence.  If,  by 
an  excess  of  courtesy,  the  Minister  were  civil  enough  to  admit  that  the 
escape  of  the  Alabama  had  been  due  to  criminal  negligence,  he  could 
make  no  such  concession  in  regard  to  the  iron-clad  rams  which  the 
Lairds  were  building ;  for  no  one  could  be  so  simple  as  to  believe  that 
two  armored  ships-of-war  could  be  built  publicly,  under  the  eyes  of 
government,  and  go  to  sea  like  the  Alabama,  without  active  and  incessant 
collusion.  The  longer  Earl  Russell  kept  on  his  mask  of  assumed  igno 
rance,  the  more  violently,  in  the  end,  the  Minister  would  have  to  tear 
it  off.  Whatever  Mr.  Adams  might  personally  think  of  Earl  Russell, 
he  must  take  the  greatest  possible  diplomatic  liberties  with  him  if  this 
crisis  were  allowed  to  arrive. 

As  the  spring  of  1863  drew  on,  the  vast  field  cleared  itself  for  action. 
A  campaign  more  beautiful, — better  suited  for  training  the  mind  of  a 
youth  eager  for  training — has  not  often  unrolled  itself  for  study,  from 
the  beginning,  before  a  young  man  perched  in  so  commanding  a  position. 
Very  slowly  indeed,  after  two  years  of  solitude,  one  began  to  feel  the 
first  faint  flush  of  new  and  imperial  life.  One  was  twenty-five  years  old, 
and  quite  ready  to  assert  it ;  some  of  one's  friends  were  wearing  stars  on 
their  collars ;  some  had  won  stars  of  a  more  enduring  kind.  At  moments 
one's  breath  came  quick.  One  began  to  dream  the  sensation  of  wielding 
unmeasured  power.  The  sense  came,  like  vertigo,  for  an  instant,  and 
passed,  leaving  the  brain  a  little  dazed,  doubtful,  shy.  With  an  in 
tensity  more  painful  than  that  of  any  Shakespearian  drama,  men's  eyes 
10 


146  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

were  fastened  on  the  armies  in  the  field.  Little  by  little,  at  first  only 
as  a  shadowy  chance  of  what  might  be,  if  things  could  be  rightly 
done,  one  began  to  feel  that,  somewhere  behind  the  chaos  in  Washington, 
power  was  taking  shape ;  that  it  was  massed  and  guided  as  it  had  not 
been  before.  Men  seemed  to  have  learned  their  business, — at  a  cost 
that  ruined  —  and  perhaps  too  late.  A  private  secretary  knew  better 
than  most  people  how  much  of  the  new  power  was  to  be  swung  in  London, 
and  almost  exactly  when ;  but  the  diplomatic  campaign  had  to  wait  for 
the  military  campaign  to  lead.  The  student  could  only  study. 

Life  never  could  know  more  than  a  single  such  climax.  In  that 
form,  education  reached  its  limits.  As  the  first  great  blows  began  to 
fall,  one  curled  up  in  bed  in  the  silence  of  night,  to  listen  with  incredu 
lous  hope.  As  the  huge  masses  struck,  one  after  another,  with  the 
precision  of  machinery,  the  opposing  mass,  the  world  shivered.  Such 
development  of  power  was  unknown.  The  magnificent  resistance  and 
the  return  shocks  heightened  the  suspense.  During  the  July  days 
Londoners  were  stupid  with  unbelief.  They  were  learning  from  the 
Yankees  how  to  fight. 

An  American  saw  in  a  flash  what  all  this  meant  to  England,  for 
one's  mind  was  working  with  the  acceleration  of  the  machine  at  home  ; 
but  Englishmen  were  not  quick  to  see  their  blunders.  One  had 
ample  time  to  watch  the  process,  and  had  even  a  little  time  to  gloat 
over  the  repayment  of  old  scores.  News  of  Vicksburg  and  Gettysburg 
reached  London  one  Sunday  afternoon,  and  it  happened  that  Henry 
Adams  was  asked  for  that  evening  to  some  small  reception  at  the  house 
of  Monckton  Milnes.  He  went  early  in  order  to  exchange  a  word  or 
two  of  congratulation  before  the  rooms  should  fill,  and  on  arriving  he 
found  only  the  ladies  in  the  drawing-room ;  the  gentlemen  were  still 
sitting  over  their  wine.  Presently  they  came  in,  and,  as  luck  would 
would  have  it,  Delane  of  the  Times  came  first.  When  Milnes  caught 
sight  of  his  young  American  friend,  with  a  whoop  of  triumph  he 
rushed  to  throw  both  arms  about  his  neck  and  kiss  him  on  both 
cheeks.  Men  of  later  birth  who  knew  too  little  to  realise  the  passions  of 
1863, — backed  by  those  of  1813, — and  reinforced  by  those  of  1763, — 
might  conceive  that  such  publicity  embarrassed  a  private  secretary  who 
came  from  Boston  and  called  himself  shy ;  but  that  evening,  for  the  first 


THE   BATTLE  OF   THE  RAMS  147 

time  in  his  life,  he  happened  not  to  be  thinking  of  himself.  He  was 
thinking  of  Delane,  whose  eye  caught  his,  at  the  moment  of  Milnes's 
embrace.  Delane  probably  regarded  it  as  a  piece  of  Milnes's  foolery ; 
he  had  never  heard  of  young  Adams,  and  never  dreamed  of  his 
resentment  at  being  ridiculed  in  the  Times ;  he  had  no  suspicion  of 
the  thought  floating  in  the  mind  of  the  American  minister's  son,  for 
the  British  mind  is  the  slowest  of  all  minds,  as  the  files  of  the  Times 
proved,  and  the  capture  of  Vicksburg  had  not  yet  penetrated  Delane's 
thick  cortex  of  fixed  ideas.  Even  if  he  had  read  Adams's  thought,  he 
would  have  felt  for  it  only  the  usual  amused  British  contempt  for  all 
that  he  had  not  been  taught  at  school.  It  needed  a  whole  generation 
for  the  Times  to  reach  Milnes's  standpoint. 

Had  the  Minister's  son  carried  out  the  thought,  he  would  surely 
have  sought  an  introduction  to  Delane  on  the  spot,  and  assured  him  that 
he  regarded  his  own  personal  score  as  cleared  off, — sufficiently  settled, 
then  and  there, — because  his  father  had  assumed  the  debt,  and  was  going 
to  deal  with  Mr.  Delane  himself.  "You  come  next!"  would  have  been 
the  friendly  warning.  For  nearly  a  year  the  private  secretary  had  watched 
the  board  arranging  itself  for  the  collision  between  the  Legation  and 
Delane  who  stood  behind  the  Palmerston  ministry.  Mr.  Adams  had  been 
steadily  strengthened  and  reinforced  from  Washington  in  view  of  the  final 
struggle.  The  situation  had  changed  since  the  Trent  Affair.  The  work 
was  efficiently  done ;  the  organization  was  fairly  complete.  No  doubt, 
the  Legation  itself  was  still  as  weakly  manned  and  had  as  poor  an  outfit 
as  the  Legations  of  Guatemala  or  Portugal.  Congress  was  always  meanly 
jealous  of  its  diplomatic  service,  and  the  chairman  of  the  Committee  of 
Foreign  Relations  was  not  likely  to  press  assistance  on  the  Minister  to 
England.  For  the  Legation  not  an  additional  clerk  was  offered  or  asked. 
The  Secretary,  the  Assistant  Secretary,  and  the  Private  Secretary  did  all 
the  work  that  the  Minister  did  not  do.  A  clerk  at  five  dollars  a  week 
would  have  done  the  work  as  well  or  better,  but  the  Minister  could 
trust  no  clerk  ;  without  express  authority  he  could  admit  no  one  into 
the  Legation  ;  he  strained  a  point  already  by  admitting  his  son.  Congress 
and  its  committees  were  the  proper  judges  of  what  was  best  for  the 
public  service,  and  if  the  arrangement  seemed  good  to  them,  it  was 
satisfactory  to  a  private  secretary  who  profited  by  it  more  than  they 


148  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

did.  A  great  staff  would  have  suppressed  him.  The  whole  Legation  was 
a  sort  of  improvised,  volunteer  service,  and  he  was  a  volunteer  with  the 
rest.  He  was  rather  better  off  than  the  rest,  because  he  was  invisible 
and  unknown.  Better  or  worse,  he  did  his  work  with  the  others,  and 
if  the  Secretaries  made  any  remarks  about  Congress,  they  made  no 
complaints,  and  knew  that  none  would  have  received  a  moment's  attention. 

If  they  were  not  satisfied  with  Congress,  they  were  satisfied  with 
Secretary  Seward.  Without  appropriations  for  the  regular  service,  he  had 
done  great  things  for  its  support.  If  the  Minister  had  no  Secretaries,  he 
had  a  staff  of  active  Consuls ;  he  had  a  well-organised  press ;  efficient 
legal  support ;  and  a  swarm  of  social  allies  permeating  all  classes.  All 
he  needed  was  a  victory  in  the  field,  and  Secretary  Stanton  undertook 
that  part  of  diplomacy.  Vicksburg  and  Gettysburg  cleared  the  board, 
and,  at  the  end  of  July,  1863,  Minister  Adams  was  ready  to  deal  with 
Earl  Russell  or  Lord  Palmerston  or  Mr.  Gladstone  or  Mr.  Delane,  or 
anyone  else  who  stood  in  his  way ;  and  by  the  necessity  of  the  case, 
was  obliged  to  deal  with  all  of  them  shortly. 

Even  before  the  military  climax  at  Vicksburg  and  Gettysburg,  the 
Minister  had  been  compelled  to  begin  his  attack;  but  this  was  history, 
and  had  nothing  to  do  with  education.  The  private  secretary  copied 
the  notes  into  his  private  books,  and  that  was  all  the  share  he  had 
in  the  matter,  except  to  talk  in  private. 

No  more  volunteer  services  were  needed ;  the  volunteers  were  in  a 
manner  sent  to  the  rear ;  the  movement  was  too  serious  for  skirmishing. 
All  that  a  secretary  could  hope  to  gain  from  the  affair  was  experience 
and  knowledge  of  politics.  He  had  a  chance  to  measure  the  motive  forces 
of  men  ;  their  qualities  of  character ;  their  foresight ;  their  tenacity  of 
purpose. 

In  the  Legation  no  great  confidence  was  felt  in  stopping  the  rams. 
Whatever  the  reason,  Russell  seemed  immoveable.  Had  his  efforts  for 
intervention  in  September,  1862,  been  known  to  the  Legation  in  September, 
1863,  the  Minister  must  surely  have  admitted  that  Russell  had,  from 
the  first,  meant  to  force  his  plan  of  intervention  on  his  colleagues.  Every 
separate  step  since  April,  1861,  led  to  this  final  coercion.  Although 
Russell's  hostile  activity  of  1862  was  still  secret — and  remained  secret  for 
some  five-and-twenty  years — his  animus  seemed  to  be  made  clear  by  his 
steady  refusal  to  stop  the  rebel  armaments.  Little  by  little,  Minister  Adams 


THE  BATTLE  OF  THE  RAMS  149 

lost  hope.  With  loss  of  hope  came  the  raising  of  tone,  until  at  last, 
after  stripping  Russell  of  every  rag  of  defence  and  excuse,  he.  closed 
by  leaving  him  loaded  with  connivance  in  the  rebel  armaments,  and 
ended  by  the  famous  sentence:  —  "It  would  be  superfluous  in  me  to 
point  out  to  your  Lordship  that  this  is  war !  " 

What  the  Minister  meant  by  this  remark  was  his  own  affair  ;  what 
the  private  secretary  understood  by  it,  was  a  part  of  his  education. 
Had  his  father  ordered  him  to  draft  an  explanatory  paragraph  to  expand 
the  idea  as  he  grasped  it,  he  would  have  continued  thus : — 

"  It  would  be  superfluous ;  —  1st.  Because  Earl  Russell  not  only 
knows  it  already,  but  has  meant  it  from  the  start ; —  2nd.  Because  it  is 
the  only  logical  and  necessary  consequence  of  his  unvarying  action  ;  — 
3d.  Because  Mr.  Adams  is  not  pointing  out  to  him  that  '  this  is  war,' 
but  is  pointing  it  out  to  the  world,  to  complete  the  record." 

This  would  have  been  the  matter-of-fact  sense  in  which  the  private 
secretary  copied  into  his  books  the  matter-of-fact  statement  with  which, 
without  passion  or  excitement,  the  Minister  announced  that  a  state  of  war 
existed.  To  his  copying  eye,  as  clerk,  the  words,  though  on  the  extreme 
verge  of  diplomatic  propriety,  merely  stated  a  fact,  without  novelty,  fancy 
or  rhetoric.  The  fact  had  to  be  stated  in  order  to  make  clear  the  issue. 
The  war  was  Russell's  war,  —  Adams  only  accepted  it. 

Russell's  reply  to  this  note  of  September  5  reached  the  Legation  on 
September  8,  announcing  at  last  to  the  anxious  secretaries  that  "  instruc 
tions  have  been  issued  which  will  prevent  the  departure  of  the  two  iron 
clad  vessels  from  Liverpool."  The  members  of  the  modest  Legation  in 
Portland  Place  accepted  it  as  Grant  had  accepted  the  capitulation  of 
Vicksburg.  The  private  secretary  conceived  that,  as  Secretary  Stanton 
had  struck  and  crushed  by  superior  weight  the  rebel  left  on  the  Missis 
sippi,  so  Secretary  Seward  had  struck  and  crushed  the  rebel  right  in 
England,  and  he  never  felt  a  doubt  as  to  the  nature  of  the  battle.  Though 
Minister  Adams  should  stay  in  office  till  he  were  ninety,  he  would  never 
fight  another  campaign  of  life  and  death  like  this ;  and  though  the  private 
secretary  should  covet  and  attain  every  office  in  the  gift  of  President  or 
people,  he  would  never  again  find  education  to  compare  with  the  life-and- 
death  alternative  of  this  two-year-and-a-half  struggle  in  London,  as  it 
had  racked  and  thumbscrewed  him  in  its  shifting  phases ;  but  its  practical 


150  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

value  as  education  turned  on  his  correctness  of  judgment  in  measuring 
the  men  and  their  forces.  He  felt  respect  for  Russell  as  for  Palmerston 
because  they  represented  traditional  England  and  an  English  policy, 
respectable  enough  in  itself,  but  which,  for  four  generations,  every 
Adams  had  fought  and  exploited  as  the  chief  source  of  his  political 
fortunes.  As  he  understood  it,  Russell  had  followed  this  policy  steadily, 
ably,  even  vigorously,  and  had  brought  it  to  the  moment  of  execution. 
Then  he  had  met  wills  stronger  than  his  own,  and,  after  persevering  to 
the  last  possible  instant,  had  been  beaten.  Lord  North  and  George 
Canning  had  a  like  experience. 

This  was  only  the  idea  of  a  boy,  but,  as  far  as  he  ever  knew,  it  was 
also  the  idea  of  his  government.  For  once,  the  volunteer  secretary  was 
satisfied  with  his  government.  Commonly  the  self-respect  of  a  secretary, 
private  or  public,  depends  on,  and  is  proportional  to,  the  severity  of 
his  criticism,  but  in  this  case  the  English  campaign  seemed  to  him  as 
creditable  to  the  State  Department  as  the  Vicksburg  campaign  to  the 
War  Department,  and  more  decisive.  It  was  well-planned,  well  prepared 
and  well  executed.  He  could  never  discover  a  mistake  in  it.  Possibly 
he  was  biassed  by  personal  interest,  but  his  chief  reason  for  trusting 
his  own  judgment  was  that  he  thought  himself  to  be  one  of  only  half 
a  dozen  persons  who  knew  something  about  it.  When  others  criticised 
Mr.  Seward,  he  was  rather  indifferent  to  their  opinions  because  he  thought 
they  hardly  knew  what  they  were  talking  about,  and  could  not  be 
taught  without  living  over  again  the  London  life  of  1862.  To  him 
Secretary  Seward  seemed  immensely  strong  and  steady  in  leadership ; 
but  this  was  no  discredit  to  Russell  or  Palmerston  or  Gladstone.  They, 
too,  had  shown  power,  patience  and  steadiness  to  purpose.  They  had 
persisted  for  two  years  and  a  half  in  their  plan  for  breaking  up  the 
Union,  and  had  yielded  at  last  only  in  the  jaws  of  war.  After  a  long 
and  desperate  struggle,  the  American  Minister  had  trumped  their  best 
card  and  won  the  game. 

Again  and  again,  in  after  life,  he  went  back  over  the  ground  to 
see  whether  he  could  detect  error  on  either  side.  He  found  none.  At 
every  stage  the  steps  were  both  probable  and  proved.  All  the  more 
he  was  disconcerted  that  Russell  should  indignantly  and  with  growing 
energy,  to  his  dying  day,  deny  and  resent  the  axiom  of  Adams's  whole 


THE   BATTLE  OF   THE  RAMS  151 

contention,  that  from  the  first  he  meant  to  break  up  the  Union.  Russell 
affirmed  that  he  meant  nothing  of  the  sort ;  that  he  had  meant  nothing 
at  all ;  that  he  meant  to  do  right ;  that  he  did  not  know  what  he  meant. 
Driven  from  one  defence  after  another,  he  pleaded  at  last,  like  Gladstone, 
that  he  had  no  defence.  Concealing  all  he  could  conceal, — burying 
in  profound  secrecy  his  attempt  to  break  up  the  Union  in  the  autumn 
of  1862,  he  affirmed  the  louder  his  scrupulous  good-faith.  What  was 
worse  for  the  private  secretary,  to  the  total  derision  and  despair  of  the 
life-long  effort  for  education,  as  the  final  result  of  combined  practice, 
experience  and  theory — he  proved  it. 

Henry  Adams  had,  as  he  thought,  suffered  too  much  from  Russell 
to  admit  any  plea  in  his  favor ;  but  he  came  to  doubt  whether  this 
admission  really  favored  him.  Not  until  long  after  Earl  Russell's 
death,  was  the  question  reopened.  Russell  had  quitted  office  in  1866 ; 
he  died  in  1878 ;  the  biography  was  published  in  1889.  During  the 
Alabama  controversy  and  the  Geneva  Conference  in  1872,  his  course  as 
Foreign  Secretary  had  been  sharply  criticised,  and  he  had  been  compelled 
to  see  England  pay  more  than  £3,000,000  penalty  for  his  errors.  On 
the  other  hand,  he  brought  forward,  —  or  his  biographer  for  him, — 
evidence  tending  to  prove  that  he  was  not  consciously  dishonest,  and 
that  he  had,  in  spite  of  appearances,  acted  without  collusion,  agreement, 
plan  or  policy,  as  far  as  concerned  the  rebels.  He  had  stood  alone,  as 
was  his  nature.  Like  Gladstone,  he  had  thought  himself  right. 

In  the  end,  Russell  entangled  himself  in  a  hopeless  ball  of  admissions, 
denials,  contradictions  and  resentments  which  led  even  his  old  colleagues 
to  drop  his  defense,  as  they  dropped  Gladstone's ;  but  this  was  not 
enough  for  the  student  of  diplomacy  who  had  made  a  certain  theory  his 
law  of  life,  and  wanted  to  hold  Russell  up  against  himself ;  to  show  that  he 
had  foresight  and  persistence  of  which  he  was  unaware.  The  effort 
became  hopeless  when  the  Biography  in  1889  published  papers  which 
upset  all  that  Henry  Adams  had  taken  for  diplomatic  education ;  yet  he 
sat  down  once  more,  when  past  sixty  years  old,  to  see  whether  he  could 
unravel  the  skein. 

Of  the  obstinate  effort  to  bring  about  an  armed  intervention,  on  the 
lines  marked  out  by  Russell's  letter  to  Palmerston  from  Gotha,  17  Sept. 
1862,  nothing  could  be  said  beyond  Gladstone's  plea  in  excuse  for  his  speech 


152  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

in  pursuance  of  the  same  effort,  that  it  was  "  the  most  singular  and  pal 
pable  error,"  "  the  least  excusable,"  "  a  mistake  of  incredible  grossness," 
which  passed  defense ;  but  while  Gladstone  threw  himself  on  the  mercy  of 
the  public  for  his  speech,  he  attempted  no  excuse  for  Lord  Russell  who 
led  him  into  the  "  incredible  grossness  "  of  announcing  the  Foreign  Secre 
tary's  intent.  Gladstone's  offense,  "  singular  and  palpable,"  was  not  the 
speech  alone,  but  its  cause, — the  policy  that  inspired  the  speech.  "  I  weakly 

supposed I  really  though  most  strangely  believed  that  it  was  an  act  of 

friendliness."  Whatever  absurdity  Gladstone  supposed,  Russell  supposed 
nothing  of  the  sort.  Neither  he  nor  Palmerston  "  most  strangely  believed  " 
in  any  proposition  so  obviously  and  palpably  absurd,  nor  did  Napoleon 
delude  himself  with  philanthropy.  Gladstone,  even  in  his  confession, 
mixed  up  policy,  speech,  motives  and  persons,  as  though  he  were  trying 
to  confuse  chiefly  himself. 

There  Gladstone's  activity  seems  to  have  stopped.  He  did  not 
reappear  in  the  matter  of  the  rams.  The  rebel  influence  shrank  in  1863, 
as  far  as  is  known,  to  Lord  Russell  alone,  who  wrote  on  September  1 
that  he  could  not  interfere  in  any  way  with  those  vessels,  and  thereby 
brought  on  himself  Mr.  Adams's  declaration  of  war  on  September  5.  A 
student  held  that,  in  this  refusal,  he  was  merely  following  his  policy  of 
September,  1862,  and  of  every  step  he  had  taken  since  1860. 

The  student  was  wrong.  Russell  proved  that  he  had  been  feeble,  timid, 
mistaken,  senile,  but  not  dishonest.  The  evidence  is  convincing.  The 
Lairds  had  built  these  ships  in  reliance  on  the  known  opinion  of  the  law- 
officers  that  the  Statute  did  not  apply,  and  a  jury  would  not  convict. 
Minister  Adams  replied  that,  in  this  case,  the  Statute  should  be  amended, 
or  the  ships  stopped  by  exercise  of  the  political  power.  Bethel  rejoined  that 
this  would  be  a  violation  of  neutrality ;  one  must  preserve  the  status  quo. 
Tacitly  Russell  connived  with  Laird,  and,  had  he  meant  to  interfere,  he 
was  bound  to  warn  Laird  that  the  defect  of  the  Statute  would  no  longer 
protect  him,  but  he  allowed  the  builders  to  go  on  till  the  ships  were 
ready  for  sea.  Then,  on  September  3,  two  days  before  Mr.  Adams's 
"  superfluous  "  letter,  he  wrote  to  Lord  Palmer&ton  begging  for  help ;  — 
"  The  conduct  of  the  gentlemen  who  have  contracted  for  the  two  iron 
clads  at  Birkenhead  is  so  very  suspicious,"  he  began,  and  this  he  actually 
wrote  in  good  faith  and  deep  confidence  to  Lord  Palmerston,  his  chief, 


THE   BATTLE  OF  THE  RAMS  153 

calling  "the  conduct"  of  the  rebel  agents  "  suspicious  "  when  no  one  else 
in  Europe  or  America  felt  any  suspicion  about  it,  because  the  whole 
question  turned  not  on  the  rams  but  on  the  technical  scope  of  the  Foreign 
Enlistment  Act, — "  that  I  have  thought  it  necessary  to  direct  that  they 
should  be  detained,"  not,  of  course,  under  the  Statute,  but  on  the  ground 
urged  by  the  American  Minister,  of  international  obligation  above  the 
Statute.  "  The  Solicitor  General  has  been  consulted  and  concurs  in 
the  measure  as  one  of  policy  though  not  of  strict  law.  We  shall  thus 
test  the  law,  and,  if  we  have  to  pay  damages,  we  have  satisfied  the  opinion 
which  prevails  here  as  well  as  in  America  that  that  kind  of  neutral 
hostility  should  not  be  allowed  to  go  on  without  some  attempt  to  stop  it." 
For  naivete  that  would  be  unusual  in  an  unpaid  attache  of  Legation, 
this  sudden  leap  from  his  own  to  his  opponent's  ground,  after  two  years 
and  a  half  of  dogged  resistance,  might  have  roused  Palmerston  to  inhuman 
scorn,  but  instead  of  derision,  well  earned  by  Russell's  old  attacks  on 
himself,  Palmerston  met  the  appeal  with  wonderful  loyalty.  "On  con 
sulting  the  law-officers  he  found  that  there  was  no  lawful  ground  for 
meddling  with  the  iron  clads,"  or,  in  unprofessional  language,  that  he 
could  trust  neither  his  law-officers  nor  a  Liverpool  jury ;  and  therefore 
he  suggested  buying  the  ships  for  the  British  navy.  As  proof  of  "  criminal 
negligence "  in  the  past,  this  suggestion  seemed  decisive,  but  Russell,  by 
this  time  was  floundering  in  other  troubles  of  negligence,  for  he  had 
neglected  to  notify  the  American  Minister.  He  should  have  done  so 
at  once,  on  September  3.  Instead  he  waited  till  September  4,  and  then 
merely  said  that  the  matter  was  under  "serious  and  anxious  consider 
ation."  This  note  did  not  reach  the  Legation  till  three  o'clock  on  the 
afternoon  of  September  5, — after  the  "superfluous"  declaration  of  war 
had  been  sent.  Thus  Lord  Russell  had  sacrificed  the  Lairds :  had  cost 
his  ministry  the  price  of  two  iron-clads,  besides  the  Alabama  Claims, 
— say,  in  round  numbers,  twenty  million  dollars,  —  and  had  put  himself 
in  the  position  of  appearing  to  yield  only  to  a  threat  of  war.  Finally 
he  wrote  to  the  Admiralty  a  letter  which,  from  the  American  point  of 
view,  would  have  sounded  youthful  from  an  Eton  school-boy : — 


154  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

SEPTEMBER  14,  1863. 
MY  DEAR  DUKE  : — 

It  is  of  the  utmost  importance  and  urgency  that  the  ironclads  building  at  Birken- 
head  should  not  go  to  America  to  break  the  blockade.  They  belong  to  Monsieur 
Bravay  of  Paris.  If  you  will  offer  to  buy  them  on  the  part  of  the  admiralty  you  will 
get  money's  worth  if  he  accepts  your  offer  ;  and  if  he  does  not,  it  will  be  presumptive 
proof  that  they  are  already  bought  by  the  Confederates.  I  should  state  that  we  have 
suggested  to  the  Turkish  government  to  buy  them  ;  but  you  can  easily  settle  that 
matter  with  the  Turks 

The  hilarity  of  the  secretaries  in  Portland  Place  would  have  heen 
loud  had  they  seen  this  letter  and  realised  the  muddle  of  difficulties  into 
which  Earl  Russell  had  at  last  thrown  himself  under  the  impulse  of  the 
American  Minister ;  but,  nevertheless,  these  letters  upset  from  top  to 
bottom  the  results  of  the  private  secretary's  diplomatic  education  forty 
years  after  he  had  supposed  it  complete.  They  made  a  picture  different 
from  anything  he  had  conceived  and  rendered  worthless  his  whole  painful 
diplomatic  experience. 

To  reconstruct,  when  past  sixty,  an  education  useful  for  any  practi 
cal  purpose,  is  no  practical  problem,  and  Adams  saw  no  use  in  attacking 
it  as  only  theoretical.  He  no  longer  cared  whether  he  understood  human 
nature  or  not ;  he  understood  quite  as  much  of  it  as  he  wanted ;  but  he 
found  in  the  Life  of  Gladstone  (n.  464.)  a  remark  several  times  repeated 
that  gave  him  matter  for  curious  thought.  "  I  always  hold,"  said  Mr. 
Gladstone,  "  that  politicians  are  the  men  whom,  as  a  rule,  it  is  most 
difficult  to  comprehend ; "  and  he  added,  by  way  of  strengthening  it ; — 
"  For  my  own  part,  I  never  have  thus  understood,  or  thought  I  under 
stood,  above  one  or  two" 

Earl  Russell  was  certainly  not  one  of  the  two. 

Henry  Adams  thought  he  also  had  understood  one  or  two :  but 
the  American  type  was  more  familiar.  Perhaps  this  was  the  sufficient 
result  of  his  diplomatic  education ;  it  seemed  to  be  the  whole. 


CHAPTER    XII 

1863 

Knowledge  of  human  nature  is  the  beginning  and  end  of  political 
education,  but  several  years  of  arduous  study  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Westminster  led  Henry  Adams  to  think  that  knowledge  of  English 
human  nature  had  little  or  no  value  outside  of  England.  In  Paris 
such  a  habit  stood  in  one's  way  ;  in  America,  it  roused  all  the  instincts 
of  native  jealousy.  The  English  mind  was  one-sided,  eccentric,  syste 
matically  unsystematic  and  logically  illogical.  The  less  one  knew  of 
it  the  better. 

This  heresy,  which  would  scarcely  have  been  allowed  to  penetrate  a 
Boston  mind, — it  would  indeed  have  been  shut  out  by  instinct  as  a 
rather  foolish  exaggeration,  —  rested  on  an  experience  which  Henry 
Adams  gravely  thought  he  had  a  right  to  think  conclusive — for  him. 
That  it  should  be  conclusive  for  anyone  else  never  occurred  to  him, 
since  he  had  no  thought  of  educating  anybody  else.  For  him — alone — 
the  less  English  education  he  got,  the  better ! 

For  several  years,  under  the  keenest  incitement  to  watchfulness,  he 
observed  the  English  mind  in  contact  with  itself  and  other  minds. 
Especially  with  the  American  the  contact  was  interesting  because  the 
limits  and  defects  of  the  American  mind  were  one  of  the  favorite  topics 
of  the  European.  From  the  old-world  point  of  view,  the  American  had 
no  mind ;  he  had  an  economic  thinking-machine  which  could  work 
only  on  a  fixed  line.  The  American  mind  exasperated  the  European 
as  a  buzz-saw  might  exasperate  a  pine-forest.  The  English  mind  disliked 
the  French  mind  because  it  was  antagonistic,  unreasonable,  perhaps 
hostile,  but  recognised  it  as  at  least  a  thought.  The  American  mind 

155 


156  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

was  not  a  thought  at  all ;  it  was  a  convention,  superficial,  narrow  and 
ignorant ;  a  mere  cutting  instrument,  practical,  economical,  sharp  and 
direct. 

The  English  themselves  hardly  conceived  that  their  mind  was  either 
economical,  sharp  or  direct ;  but  the  defect  that  most  struck  an  American 
was  its  enormous  waste  in  eccentricity.  Americans  needed  and  used 
their  whole  energy,  and  applied  it  with  close  economy ;  but  English 
society  was  eccentric  by  law  and  for  sake  of  the  eccentricity  itself. 

The  commonest  phrase  overheard  at  an  English  club  or  dinner-table 
was  that  so-and-so  "  is  quite  mad."  It  was  no  offense  to  so-and-so ;  it 
hardly  distinguished  him  from  his  fellows ;  and  when  applied  to  a 
public  man,  like  Gladstone,  it  was  qualified  by  epithets  much  more 
forcible.  Eccentricity  was  so  general  as  to  become  hereditary  distinction. 
It  made  the  chief  charm  of  English  society  as  well  as  its  chief  terror. 

The  American  delighted  in  Thackeray  as  a  satirist,  but  Thackeray 
quite  justly  maintained  that  he  was  not  a  satirist  at  all,  and  that  his 
pictures  of  English  society  were  exact  and  good-natured.  The  American, 
who  could  not  believe  it,  fell  back  on  Dickens,  who,  at  all  events, 
had  the  vice  of  exaggeration  to  extravagance,  but  Dickens's  English 
audience  thought  the  exaggeration  rather  in  manner  or  style,  than 
in  types.  Mr.  Gladstone  himself  went  to  see  Sothern  act  Dundreary, 
and  laughed  till  his  face  was  distorted, — not  because  Dundreary  was 
exaggerated  but  because  he  was  ridiculously  like  the  types  that  Glad 
stone  had  seen — or  might  have  seen  —  in  any  Club  in  Pall  Mall. 
Society  swarmed  with  exaggerated  characters ;  it  contained  little  else. 

Often  this  eccentricity  bore  all  the  marks  of  strength  ;  perhaps  it 
was  actual  exuberance  of  force,  a  birthmark  of  genius.  Boston  thought 
so.  The  Bostonian  called  it  national  character — native  vigor — robustness, — 
honesty, — courage.  He  respected  and  feared  it.  British  self-assertion, 
bluff,  brutal,  blunt  as  it  was,  seemed  to  him  a  better  and  nobler  thing 
than  the  acuteness  of  the  Yankee  or  the  polish  of  the  Parisian. 
Perhaps  he  was  right.  These  questions  of  taste,  of  feeling,  of  inheri 
tance,  need  no  settlement.  Everyone  carries  his  own  inch-rule  of  taste, 
and  amuses  himself  by  applying  it,  triumphantly,  wherever  he  travels. 
Whatever  others  thought,  the  cleverest  Englishmen  held  that  the 
national  eccentricity  needed  correction,  and  were  beginning  to  correct  it. 


ECCENTRICITY  157 

The  savage  satires  of  Dickens  and  the  gentler  ridicule  of  Matthew 
Arnold  against  the  British  middle-class  were  but  a  part  of  the  rebellion, 
for  the  middle-class  were  no  worse  than  their  neighbors  in  the  eyes  of  an 
American  in  1863 ;  they  were  even  a  very  little  better  in  the  sense 
that  one  could  appeal  to  their  interests,  while  a  University  man,  like 
Gladstone,  stood  outside  of  argument.  From  none  of  them  could  a 
young  American  afford  to  borrow  ideas. 

The  private  Secretary,  like  every  other  Bostonian,  began  by  regard 
ing  British  eccentricity  as  a  force.  Contact  with  it,  in  the  shape  of 
Palmerston,  Russell  and  Gladstone,  made  him  hesitate ;  he  saw  his  own 
national  type, — his  father,  Weed,  Evarts,  for  instance, — deal  with  the 
British,  and  show  itself  certainly  not  the  weaker ;  certainly  sometimes 
the  stronger.  Biassed  though  he  were,  he  could  hardly  be  biassed  to 
such  a  degree  as  to  mistake  the  effects  of  force  on  others,  and  while — 
labor  as  he  might, — Earl  Russell  and  his  state-papers  seemed  weak  to  a 
secretary,  he  could  not  see  that  they  seemed  strong  to  Russell's  own 
followers.  Russell  might  be  dishonest  or  he  might  be  merely  obtuse, — 
the  English  type  might  be  brutal  or  might  be  only  stupid, — but  strong, 
in  either  case,  it  was  not,  nor  did  it  seem  strong  to  Englishmen. 

Eccentricity  was  not  always  a  force ;  Americans  were  deeply 
interested  in  deciding  whether  it  was  always  a  weakness.  Evidently, 
on  the  hustings  or  in  Parliament,  among  eccentricities,  eccentricity  was 
at  home ;  but  in  private  society  the  question  was  not  easy  to  answer. 
That  English  society  was  infinitely  more  amusing  because  of  its  eccen 
tricities,  no  one  denied.  Barring  the  atrocious  insolence  and  brutality 
which  Englishmen  and  especially  Englishwomen  showed  to  each  other, — 
very  rarely  indeed  to  foreigners, — English  society  was  much  more  easy 
and  tolerant  than  American.  One  must  expect  to  be  treated  with 
exquisite  courtesy  this  week  and  be  totally  forgotten  the  next,  but  this 
was  the  way  of  the  world,  and  education  consisted  in  learning  to  turn 
one's  back  on  others  with  the  same  unconscious  indifference  that  others 
showed  among  themselves.  The  smart  of  wounded  vanity  lasted  no 
long  time  with  a  young  man  about  town  who  had  little  vanity  to  smart, 
and  who,  in  his  own  country,  would  have  found  himself  in  no  better 
position.  He  had  nothing  to  complain  of.  No  one  was  ever  brutal  to 
him.  On  the  contrary,  he  was  much  better  treated  than  ever  he  was 


158  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

likely  to  be  in  Boston, — let  alone  New  York  or  Washington, — and  if 
his  reception  varied  inconceivably  between  extreme  courtesy  and  extreme 
neglect,  it  merely  proved  that  he  had  become,  or  was  becoming  at  home. 
Not  from  a  sense  of  personal  griefs  or  disappointments  did  he  labor  over 
this  part  of  the  social  problem,  but  only  because  his  education  was 
becoming  English,  and  the  further  it  went,  the  less  it  promised. 

By  natural  affinity  the  social  eccentrics  commonly  sympathised  with 
political  eccentricity.  The  English  mind  took  naturally  to  rebellion, — when 
foreign,  —  and  it  felt  particular  confidence  in  the  southern  confederacy 
because  of  its  combined  attributes, — foreign  rebellion  of  English  blood, — 
which  came  nearer  ideal  eccentricity  than  could  be  reached  by  Poles,  Hun 
garians,  Italians  or  Frenchmen.  All  the  English  eccentrics  rushed  into 
the  ranks  of  rebel  sympathisers,  leaving  few  but  well-balanced  minds  to 
attach  themselves  to  the  cause  of  the  Union.  None  of  the  English 
leaders  on  the  northern  side  were  marked  eccentrics.  William  E.  Forster 
was  a  practical,  hard-headed  Yorkshireman,  whose  chief  ideals  in  politics 
took  shape  as  working  arrangements  on  an  economical  base.  Cobden,  con 
sidering  the  one-sided  conditions  of  his  life,  was  remarkably  well-balanced. 
John  Bright  was  stronger  in  his  expressions  than  either  of  them,  but  with 
all  his  self-assertion  he  stuck  to  his  point,  and  his  point  was  practical. 
He  did  not,  like  Gladstone,  box  the  compass  of  thought,  "furiously 
earnest,"  as  Monckton  Milnes  said,  "  on  both  sides  of  every  question ; "  he 
was  rather,  on  the  whole,  a  consistent  conservative  of  the  old  Commonwealth 
type,  and  seldom  had  to  defend  inconsistencies.  Monckton  Milnes  himself 
was  regarded  as  an  eccentric,  chiefly  by  those  who  did  not  know  him,  but 
his  fancies  and  hobbies  were  only  ideas  a  little  in  advance  of  the  time ;  his 
manner  was  eccentric  but  not  his  mind,  as  anyone  could  see  who  read  a 
page  of  his  poetry.  None  of  them,  except  Milnes,  was  a  University  man. 
As  a  rule,  the  Legation  was  troubled  very  little,  if  at  all,  by  indiscretions, 
extravagances  or  contradictions  among  its  English  friends.  Their  work 
was  always  judicious,  practical,  well-considered,  and  almost  too  cautious. 
The  "  cranks "  were  all  rebels,  and  the  list  was  portentous.  Perhaps  it 
might  be  headed  by  old  Lord  Brougham,  who  had  the  audacity  to  appear  at 
a  July  4th  reception  at  the  Legation,  led  by  Joe  Parkes,  and  claim  his 
old  credit  as  "Attorney  General  to  Mr.  Madison."  The  Church  was 
rebel,  but  the  dissenters  were  mostly  with  the  Union.  The  Universities 
were  rebel,  but  the  University-men  who  enjoyed  most  public  confidence, 


ECCENTRICITY  159 

— like  Lord  Granville,  Sir  George  Cornewall  Lewis,  Lord  Stanley,  Sir 
George  Grey, — took  infinite  pains  to  be  neutral  for  fear  of  being  thought 
eccentric.  To  most  observers,  as  well  as  to  the  Times,  the  Morning  Post 
and  the  Standard,  a  vast  majority  of  the  English  people  seemed  to  follow 
the  professional  eccentrics ;  even  the  emotional  philanthropists  took  that 
direction ;  Lord  Shaftesbury  and  Carlisle,  Fowell  Buxton  and  Gladstone 
threw  their  sympathies  on  the  side  which  they  should  naturally  have 
opposed,  and  did  so  for  no  reason  except  their  eccentricity ;  but  the 
"  canny "  Scots  and  Yorkshiremen  were  cautious. 

This  eccentricity  did  not  mean  strength.  The  proof  of  it  was  the 
mismanagement  of  the  rebel  interests.  No  doubt  the  first  cause  of  this 
trouble  lay  in  the  Richmond  government  itself.  No  one  understood  why 
Jefferson  Davis  chose  Mr.  Mason  as  his  agent  for  London  at  the  same 
time  that  he  made  so  good  a  choice  as  Mr.  Slidell  for  Paris.  The  Con 
federacy  had  plenty  of  excellent  men  to  send  to  London,  but  few  who  were 
less  fitted  than  Mason.  Possibly  Mason  had  a  certain  amount  of  common 
sense,  but  he  seemed  to  have  nothing  else,  and  in  London  society  he 
counted  merely  as  one  eccentric  more.  He  enjoyed  a  great  opportunity ; 
he  might  even  have  figured  as  a  new  Benjamin  Franklin  with  all  society 
at  his  feet ;  he  might  have  roared  as  lion  of  the  season  and  made 
the  social  path  of  the  American  minister  almost  impassable  ;  but  Mr. 
Adams  had  his  usual  luck  in  enemies,  who  were  always  his  most 
valuable  allies  if  his  friends  only  let  them  alone.  Mason  was  his  greatest 
diplomatic  triumph.  He  had  his  collision  with  Palmerston ;  he  drove 
Russell  off  the  field ;  he  swept  the  board  before  Cockburn  ;  he  overbore 
Slidell ;  but  he  never  lifted  a  finger  against  Mason,  who  became  his 
bulwark  of  defense. 

Possibly  Jefferson  Davis  and  Mr.  Mason  shared  two  defects  in  common 
which  might  have  led  them  into  this  serious  mistake.  Neither  could 
have  had  much  knowledge  of  the  world,  and  both  must  have  been 
unconscious  of  humor.  Yet  at  the  same  time  with  Mason,  President 
Davis  sent  out  Mr.  Slidell  to  France  and  Mr.  Lamar  to  Russia.  Some 
twenty  years  later,  in  the  shifting  search  for  the  education  he  never  found, 
Adams  became  closely  intimate  at  Washington  with  Lamar,  then  Senator 
from  Mississippi,  who  had  grown  to  be  one  of  the  calmest,  most 
reasonable  and  most  amiable  union-men  in  the  United  States,  and  quite 


160  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

unusual  in  social  charm.  In  1860  he  passed  for  the  worst  of  southern 
fire-eaters,  but  he  was  an  eccentric  hy  environment,  not  by  nature ; 
above  all  his  southern  eccentricities,  he  had  tact  and  humor  ;  and  perhaps 
this  was  a  reason  why  Mr.  Davis  sent  him  abroad  with  the  others, 
on  a  futile  mission  to  St.  Petersburg.  He  would  have  done  better  in 
London,  in  place  of  Mason.  London  society  would  have  delighted  in  him  ; 
his  stories  would  have  won  success ;  his  manners  would  have  made  him 
loved ;  his  oratory  would  have  swept  every  audience ;  even  Monckton 
Milnes  could  never  have  resisted  the  temptation  of  having  him  to 
breakfast  between  Lord  Shaftesbury  and  the  Bishop  of  Oxford. 

Lamar  liked  to  talk  of  his  brief  career  in  diplomacy,  but  he  never 
spoke  of  Mason.  He  never  alluded  to  confederate  management  or 
criticised  Jefferson  Davis's  administration.  The  subject  that  amused 
him  was  his  English  allies.  At  that  moment, — the  early  summer  of 
1863, — the  rebel  party  in  England  were  full  of  confidence,  and  felt 
strong  enough  to  challenge  the  American  Legation  to  a  show  of  power. 
They  knew  better  than  the  Legation  what  they  could  depend  upon : — 
that  the  law-officers  and  commissioners  of  customs  at  Liverpool  dared  not 
prosecute  the  iron-clad  ships ;  that  Palmerston,  Russell  and  Gladstone  were 
ready  to  recognise  the  Confederacy;  that  the  Emperor  Napoleon  would 
offer  them  every  inducement  to  do  it.  In  a  manner  they  owned  Liver 
pool  and  especially  the  firm  of  Laird  who  were  building  their  ships.  The 
active  member  of  the  Laird  firm  was  Lindsay,  about  whom  the  whole 
web  of  rebel  interests  clung ; — rams,  cruisers,  munitions  and  confederate 
loan ;  social  introductions  and  parliamentary  tactics.  The  firm  of  Laird, 
with  a  certain  dignity,  claimed  to  be  champion  of  England's  navy ;  and 
public  opinion,  in  the  summer  of  1863,  still  inclined  towards  them. 

Never  was  there  a  moment  when  eccentricity,  if  it  were  a  force, 
should  have  had  more  value  to  the  rebel  interest ;  and  the  managers 
must  have  thought  so,  for  they  adopted  or  accepted  as  their  champion 
an  eccentric  of  eccentrics;  a  type  of  1820;  a  sort  of  Brougham  of 
Sheffield,  notorious  for  poor  judgment  and  worse  temper.  Mr.  Roebuck 
had  been  a  tribune  of  the  people,  and,  like  tribunes  of  most  other  peoples, 
in  growing  old,  had  grown  fatuous.  He  was  regarded  by  the  friends 
of  the  Union  as  rather  a  comical  personage,  —  a  favorite  subject  for  Punch 
to  laugh  at, — with  a  bitter  tongue  and  a  mind  enfeebled  even  more 


ECCENTRICITY  161 

than  common  by  the  political  epidemic  of  egotism.  In  all  England  they 
could  have  found  no  opponent  better  fitted  to  give  away  his  own  case. 
No  American  man  of  business  would  have  paid  him  attention  ;  yet  the 
Lairds,  who  certainly  knew  their  own  affairs  best,  let  Roebuck  represent 
them  and  take  charge  of  their  interests. 

With  Roebuck's  doings,  the  private  secretary  had  no  concern  except 
that  the  minister  sent  him  down  to  the  House  of  Commons  on  June 
30,  1863,  to  report  the  result  of  Roebuck's  motion  to  recognise  the 
southern  confederacy.  The  Legation  felt  no  anxiety,  having  Vicksburg 
already  in  its  pocket,  and  Bright  and  Forster  to  say  so ;  but  the  private 
secretary  went  down  and  was  admitted  under  the  gallery  on  the  left,  to 
listen,  with  great  content,  while  John  Bright,  with  astonishing  force, 
caught  and  shook  and  tossed  Roebuck,  as  a  big  mastiff  shakes  a  wiry, 
ill-conditioned,  toothless,  bad-tempered  Yorkshire  terrier.  The  private 
secretary  felt  an  artistic  sympathy  with  Roebuck,  for,  from  time  to  time, 
by  way  of  practice,  Bright  in  a  friendly  way  was  apt  to  shake  him  too, 
and  he  knew  how  it  was  done.  The  manner  counted  for  more  than  the 
words.  The  scene  was  interesting,  but  the  result  was  not  in  doubt. 

All  the  more  sharply  he  was  excited,  near  the  year  1879,  in  Wash 
ington,  by  hearing  Lamar  begin  a  story  after  dinner,  which,  little  by  little, 
became  dramatic,  recalling  the  scene  in  the  House  of  Commons.  The 
story,  as  well  as  one  remembered,  began  with  Lamar's  failure  to  reach 
St.  Petersburg  at  all,  and  his  consequent  detention  in  Paris  waiting 
instructions.  The  motion  to  recognise  the  Confederacy  was  about  to  be 
made,  and,  in  prospect  of  the  debate,  Mr.  Lindsay  collected  a  party  at 
his  villa  on  the  Thames  to  bring  the  rebel  agents  into  relations  with 
Roebuck.  Lamar  was  sent  for,  and  came.  After  much  conversation 
of  a  general  sort,  such  as  is  the  usual  object  or  resource  of  the  English 
Sunday,  finding  himself  alone  with  Roebuck,  Lamar,  by  way  of  showing 
interest,  bethought  himself  of  John  Bright  and  asked  Roebuck  whether 
he  expected  Bright  to  take  part  in  the  debate  :  — "  No,  sir !  "  said  Roebuck, 
sententiously ;  "  Bright  and  I  have  met  before.  It  was  the  old  story, 
—  the  story  of  the  sword-fish  and  the  whale !  No,  sir  !  Mr.  Bright  will 
not  cross  swords  with  me  again ! " 

Thus  assured,  Lamar  went  with  the  more  confidence  to  the  House 
on  the  appointed  evening,  and  was  placed  under  the  gallery,  on  the 
11 


162  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

right,  where  he  listened  to  Roebuck  and  followed  the  debate  with  such 
enjoyment  as  an  experienced  debater  feels  in  these  contests,  until,  as 
he  said,  he  became  aware  that  a  man  with  a  singularly  rich  voice  and 
imposing  manner,  had  taken  the  floor,  and  was  giving  Roebuck  the  most 
deliberate  and  tremendous  pounding  he  ever  witnessed,  "  until  at  last," 
concluded  Lamar,  "  it  dawned  on  my  mind  that  the  sword-fish  was  getting 
the  worst  of  it." 

Lamar  told  the  story  in  the  spirit  of  a  joke  against  himself  rather 
than  against  Roebuck ;  but  such  jokes  must  have  been  unpleasantly 
common  in  the  experience  of  the  rebel  agents.  They  were  surrounded 
by  cranks  of  the  worst  English  species,  who  distorted  their  natural  eccen 
tricities  and  perverted  their  judgment.  Roebuck  may  have  been  an 
extreme  case,  since  he  was  actually  in  his  dotage,  yet  this  did  not 
prevent  the  Lairds  from  accepting  his  lead,  or  the  House  from  taking 
him  seriously.  Extreme  eccentricity  was  no  bar,  in  England,  to  extreme 
confidence ;  sometimes  it  seemed  a  recommendation ;  and  unless  it  caused 
financial  loss,  it  rather  helped  popularity. 

The  question  whether  British  eccentricity  was  ever  strength  weighed 
heavily  in  the  balance  of  education.  That  Roebuck  should  mislead  the 
rebel  agents  on  so  strange  a  point  as  that  of  Bright's  courage  was  doubly 
characteristic  because  the  southern  people  themselves  had  this  same 
barbaric  weakness  of  attributing  want  of  courage  to  opponents,  and  owed 
their  ruin  chiefly  to  such  ignorance  of  the  world.  Bright's  courage 
was  almost  as  irrational  as  that  of  the  rebels  themselves.  Everyone 
knew  that  he  had  the  courage  of  a  prize-fighter.  He  struck,  in  succes 
sion,  pretty  nearly  every  man  in  England  that  could  be  reached  by  a 
blow,  and  when  he  could  not  reach  the  individual  he  struck  the  class, 
or  when  the  class  was  too  small  for  him,  the  whole  people  of  England. 
At  times  he  had  the  whole  country  on  his  back.  He  could  not  act  on 
the  defensive ;  his  mind  required  attack.  Even  among  friends  at  the 
dinner-table  he  talked  as  though  he  were  denouncing  them,  or  some 
one  else,  on  a  platform ;  he  measured  his  phrases,  built  his  sentences, 
cumulated  his  effects,  and  pounded  his  opponents,  real  or  imagined. 
His  humor  was  glow,  like  iron  at  dull  heat ;  his  blow  was  elementary, 
like  the  thrash  of  a  whale. 

One   day   in   early  spring,   March   26,   1863,  the   Minister  requested 


ECCENTRICITY  163 

his  private  secretary  to  attend  a  Trades  Unions  Meeting  at  St.  James's 
Hall,  which  was  the  result  of  Professor  Beesley's  patient  efforts  to 
unite  Bright  and  the  Trades  Unions  on  an  American  platform.  The 
secretary  went  to  the  meeting  and  made  a  report  which  reposes  some 
where  on  file  in  the  State  Department  to  this  day,  as  harmless  as  such 
reports  should  be ;  but  contained  no  mention  of  what  interested  young 
Adams  most, — Bright's  psychology.  With  singular  skill  and  oratorical 
power,  Bright  managed  at  the  outset,  in  his  opening  paragraph,  to 
insult  or  outrage  every  class  of  Englishman  commonly  considered 
respectable,  and,  for  fear  of  any  escaping,  he  insulted  them  repeatedly 
under  consecutive  heads.  The  rhetorical  effect  was  tremendous : — 

"  Privilege  thinks  it  has  a  great  interest  in  the  American  contest," 
he  began  in  his  massive,  deliberate  tones ;  "  and  every  morning  with 
blatant  voice,  it  comes  into  our  streets  and  curses  the  American  republic. 
Privilege  has  beheld  an  afflicting  spectacle  for  many  years  past.  It 
has  beheld  thirty  million  of  men  happy  and  prosperous,  without 
emperors, — without  king  (cheers), — without  the  surroundings  of  a  court 
(renewed  cheers), — without  nobles,  except  such  as  are  made  by  eminence 
in  intellect  and  virtue, — without  State  bishops  and  State  priests,  those 
vendors  of  the  love  that  works  salvation  (cheers), — without  great  armies 
and  great  navies, — without  a  great  debt  and  great  taxes, — and  Privilege 
has  shuddered  at  what  might  happen  to  old  Europe  if  this  great 
experiment  should  succeed." 

An  ingenious  man,  with  an  inventive  mind,  might  have  managed, 
in  the  same  number  of  lines,  to  offend  more  Englishmen  than  Bright 
struck  in  this  sentence;  but  he  must  have  betrayed  artifice  and  hurt  his 
oratory.  The  audience  cheered  furiously,  and  the  private  secretary  felt  peace 
in  his  much  troubled  mind,  for  he  knew  how  careful  the  ministry  would 
be,  once  they  saw  Bright  talk  republican  principles  before  Trades  Unions ; 
but,  while  he  did  not,  like  Roebuck,  see  reason  to  doubt  the  courage  of  a 
man  who,  after  quarreling  with  the  Trades  Unions,  quarreled  with  all  the 
world  outside  the  Trades  Unions,  he  did  feel  a  doubt  whether  to  class  Bright 
as  eccentric  or  conventional.  Everyone  called  Bright  "  un-English,"  from 
Lord  Palmerston  to  William  E.  Forster;  but  to  an  American  he  seemed  more 
English  than  any  of  his  critics.  He  was  a  liberal  hater,  and  what  he 
hated  he  reviled  after  the  manner  of  Milton,  but  he  was  afraid  of  no 


164  THE   EDUCATION   OF   HENRY   ADAMS 

one.  He  was  almost  the  only  man  in  England,  or  for  that  matter,  in 
Europe,  who  hated  Palmerston  and  was  not  afraid  of  him,  or  of  the  press 
or  the  pulpit,  the  clubs  or  the  bench,  that  stood  behind  him.  He  loathed 
the  whole  fabric  of  sham-religion,  sham-loyalty,  sham-aristocracy  and  sham- 
socialism.  He  had  the  British  weakness  of  believing  only  in  himself  and 
his  own  conventions.  In  all  this,  an  American  saw,  if  one  may  make  the 
distinction,  much  racial  eccentricity,  but  little  that  was  personal.  Bright 
was  singularly  well-poised  ;  but  he  used  singularly  strong  language. 

Long  afterwards,  in  1880,  Adams  happened  to  be  living  again  in 
London  for  a  season,  when  James  Russell  Lowell  was  transferred  there 
as  Minister ;  and  as  Adams's  relations  with  Lowell  had  become  closer 
and  more  intimate  with  years,  he  wanted  the  new  minister  to  know  some 
of  his  old  friends.  Bright  was  then  in  the  Cabinet,  and  no  longer  the  most 
radical  member  even  there,  but  he  was  still  a  rare  figure  in  society.  He 
came  to  dinner,  along  with  Sir  Francis  Doyle  and  Sir  Robert  Cunliffe, 
and  as  usual  did  most  of  the  talking.  As  usual  also,  he  talked  of  the 
things  most  on  his  mind'.  Apparently  it  must  have  been  some  reform  of 
the  criminal  law  which  the  Judges  opposed,  that  excited  him,  for  at  the 
end  of  dinner,  over  the  wine,  he  took  possession  of  the  table  in  his  old  way, 
and  ended  with  a  superb  denunciation  of  the  Bench,  spoken  in  his  mas 
sive  manner,  as  though  every  word  were  a  hammer,  smashing  what  it 
struck : — 

"  For  two  hundred  years,  the  Judges  of  England  sat  on  the  Bench, 
condemning  to  the  penalty  of  death  every  man,  woman  and  child  who 
stole  property  to  the  value  of  five  shillings ;  and,  during  all  that  time, 
not  one  Judge  ever  remonstrated  against  the  law.  We  English  are  a 
nation  of  brutes,  and  ought  to  be  exterminated  to  the  last  man." 

As  the  party  rose  from  table  and  passed  into  the  drawing-room, 
Adams  said  to  Lowell  that  Bright  was  very  fine.  "  Yes ! "  replied 
Lowell ;  "  but  too  violent !  " 

Precisely  this  was  the  point  that  Adams  doubted.  Bright  knew  his 
Englishmen  better  than  Lowell  did, — better  than  England  did.  He  knew 
what  amount  of  violence  in  language  was  necessary  to  drive  an  idea 
into  a  Lancashire  or  Yorkshire  head.  He  knew  that  no  violence  was 
enough  to  affect  a  Somersetshire  or  Wiltshire  peasant.  Bright  kept  his 
own  head  cool  and  clear.  He  was  not  excited ;  he  never  betrayed  excite- 


ECCENTRICITY  165 

ment.  As  for  his  denunciation  of  the  English  bench,  it  was  a  very  old 
story,  not  original  with  him.  That  the  English  were  a  nation  of 
brutes  was  a  commonplace  generally  admitted  by  Englishmen  and  uni 
versally  accepted  by  foreigners ;  while  the  matter  of  their  extermination 
could  be  treated  only  as  unpractical,  on  their  deserts,  because  they  were 
probably  not  very  much  worse  than  their  neighbors.  Had  Bright  said  that 
the  French,  Spaniards,  Germans  or  Russians  were  a  nation  of  brutes  and 
ought  to  be  exterminated,  no  one  would  have  found  fault ;  the  whole  human 
race,  according  to  the  highest  authority  has  been  exterminated  once 
already  for  the  same  reason,  and  only  the  rainbow  protects  them  from  a 
repetition  of  it.  What  shocked  Lowell  was  that  he  denounced  his  own 
people. 

Adams  felt  no  moral  obligation  to  defend  Judges,  who,  as  far  as  he 
knew,  were  the  only  class  of  society  specially  adapted  to  defend  themselves ; 
but  he  was  curious, — even  anxious, — as  a  point  of  education,  to  decide  for 
himself  whether  Bright's  language  was  violent  for  its  purpose.  He 
thought  not.  Perhaps  Cobden  did  better  by  persuasion,  but  that  was 
another  matter.  Of  course,  even  Englishmen  sometimes  complained  of 
being  so  constantly  told  that  they  were  brutes  and  hypocrites,  although 
they  were  told  little  else  by  their  censors,  and  bore  it,  on  the  whole, 
meekly ;  but  the  fact  that  it  was  true  in  the  main  troubled  the  ten- 
pound  voter  much  less  than  it  troubled  Newman,  Gladstone,  Ruskin, 
Carlyle  and  Matthew  Arnold.  Bright  was  personally  disliked  by  his 
victims,  but  not  distrusted.  They  never  doubted  what  he  would  do  next, 
as  they  did  with  John  Russell,  Gladstone  and  Disraeli.  He  betrayed 
no  one,  and  he  never  advanced  an  opinion  in  practical  matters  which 
did  not  prove  to  be  practical. 

The  class  of  Englishmen  who  set  out  to  be  the  intellectual  opposites 
of  Bright,  seemed  to  an  American  bystander  the  weakest  and  most  ec 
centric  of  all.  These  were  the  trimmers,  the  political  economists,  the 
antislavery  and  doctrinaire  class,  the  followers  of  De  Tocqueville,  and 
of  John  Stuart  Mill.  As  a  class,  they  were  timid,  —  with  good  reason, 
— and  timidity,  which  is  high  wisdom  in  philosophy,  sicklies  the  whole 
cast  of  thought  in  action.  Numbers  of  these  men  haunted  London 
society,  all  tending  to  free-thinking,  but  never  venturing  much  freedom 
of  thought.  Like  the  anti-slavery  doctrinaires  of  the  forties  and  fifties, 


166  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

they  became  mute  and  useless  when  slavery  struck  them  in  the  face. 
For  type  of  these  eccentrics,  literature  seems  to  have  chosen  Henry  Reeve, 
at  least  to  the  extent  of  biography.  He  was  a  bulky  figure  in  society, 
always  friendly,  good-natured,  obliging  and  useful ;  almost  as  universal 
as  Milnes  and  more  busy.  As  editor  of  the  Edinburgh  Review  he  had 
authority  and  even  power,  although  the  Review  and  the  whole  Whig 
doctrinaire  school  had  begun,  —  as  the  French  say,  —  to  date;  and  of 
course  the  literary  and  artistic  sharpshooters  of  1867,  —  like  Frank 
Palgrave,  —  frothed  and  foamed  at  the  mere  mention  of  Reeve's  name. 
Three-fourths  of  their  fury  was  due  only  to  his  ponderous  manner. 
London  society  abused  its  rights  of  personal  criticism  by  fixing  on  every 
too  conspicuous  figure  some  word  or  phrase  that  stuck  to  it.  Everyone 
had  heard  of  Mrs.  Grote  as  "  the  origin  of  the  word  grotesque."  Everyone 
had  laughed  at  the  story  of  Reeve  approaching  Mrs.  Grote,  with  his 
usual  somewhat  florid  manner,  asking  in  his  literary  dialect  how  her 
husband  the  historian  was:  —  "And  how  is  the  learned  Grotius?"  "Pretty 
well,  thank  you,  Puffendorf!"  One  winced  at  the  word,  as  though  it 
were  a  drawing  of  Forain. 

No  one  would  have  been  more  shocked  than  Reeve,  had  he  been 
charged  with  want  of  moral  courage.  He  proved  his  courage  afterwards 
by  publishing  the  Greville  Memoirs,  braving  the  displeasure  of  the  Queen. 
Yet  the  Edinburgh  Review  and  its  Editor  avoided  taking  sides  except 
where  sides  were  already  fixed.  Americanism  would  have  been  bad  form 
in  the  liberal  Edinburgh  Review;  it  would  have  seemed  eccentric  even 
for  a  Scotchman,  and  Reeve  was  a  Saxon  of  Saxons.  To  an  American 
this  attitude  of  oscillating  reserve  seemed  more  eccentric  than  the  reckless 
hostility  of  Brougham  or  Carlyle,  and  more  mischievous,  for  he  never 
could  be  sure  what  preposterous  commonplace  it  might  encourage. 

The  sum  of  these  experiences  in  1863  left  the  conviction  that 
eccentricity  was  weakness.  The  young  American  who  should  adopt 
English  thought  was  lost.  From  the  facts,  the  conclusion  was  correct, 
yet,  as  usual,  the  conclusion  was  wrong.  The  years  of  Palmerston's  last 
Cabinet,  1859-1865,  were  avowedly  years  of  truce — of  arrested  develop 
ment.  The  British  system  like  the  French,,  was  in  its  last  stage  of 
decomposition.  Never  had  the  British  mind  shown  itself  so  decousu, — 
so  unravelled,  at  sea,  floundering  in  every  sort  of  historical  shipwreck. 


ECCENTRICITY  167 

Eccentricities  had  a  free  field.  Contradictions  swarmed  in  State  and 
Church.  England  devoted  thirty  years  of  arduous  labor  to  clearing 
away  only  a  part  of  the  debris.  A  young  American  in  1863  could  see 
little  or  nothing  of  the  future.  He  might  dream,  but  he  could  not 
foretell,  the  suddenness  with  which  the  old  Europe,  with  England  in 
its  wake,  was  to  vanish  in  1870.  He  was  in  dead-water,  and  the 
parti-colored,  fantastic  cranks  swam  about  his  boat,  as  though  he  were 
the  ancient  mariner,  and  they  saurians  of  the  prime. 


CHAPTEK    XIII 

1864 

Minister  Adams's  success  in  stopping  the  rebel  rams  fixed  his 
position  once  for  all  in  English  society.  From  that  moment  he  could 
afford  to  drop  the  character  of  diplomatist,  and  assume  what,  for  an 
American  minister  in  London,  was  an  exclusive  diplomatic  advantage, 
the  character  of  a  kind  of  American  Peer  of  the  Realm.  The  British 
never  did  things  by  halves.  Once  they  recognised  a  man's  right  to 
social  privileges,  they  accepted  him  as  one  of  themselves.  Much  as 
Lord  Derby  and  Mr.  Disraeli  were  accepted  as  leaders  of  Her  Majesty's 
domestic  Opposition,  Minister  Adams  had  a  rank  of  his  own  as  a  kind 
of  leader  of  Her  Majesty's  American  opposition.  Even  the  Times 
conceded  it.  The  years  of  struggle  were  over,  and  Minister  Adams 
rapidly  gained  a  position  which  would  have  caused  his  father  or 
grandfather  to  stare  with  incredulous  envy. 

This  Anglo-American  form  of  diplomacy  was  chiefly  undiplomatic, 
and  had  the  peculiar  effect  of  teaching  a  habit  of  diplomacy  useless  or 
mischievous  everywhere  but  in  London.  Nowhere  else  in  the  world 
could  one  expect  to  figure  in  a  role  so  unprofessional.  The  young  man 
knew  no  longer  what  character  he  bore.  Private  secretary  in  the 
morning,  son  in  the  afternoon,  young  man  about  town  in  the  evening, 
the  only  character  he  never  bore  was  that  of  diplomatist,  except  when 
he  wanted  a  card  to  some  great  function.  His  diplomatic  education 
was  at  an  end ;  he  seldom  met  a  diplomate,  and  never  had  business 
with  one;  he  could  be  of  no  use  to  them,  or  they  to  him;  but  he 
drifted  inevitably  into  society,  and,  do  what  he  might,  his  next  educa 
tion  must  be  one  of  English  social  life.  Tossed  between  the  horns  of 
168 


THE  PERFECTION  OF   HUMAN   SOCIETY  169 

successive  dilemmas,  he  reached  his  twenty-sixth  birthday  without  the 
power  of  earning  five  dollars  in  any  occupation.  His  friends  in  the 
army  were  almost  as  badly  off,  but  even  army-life  ruined  a  young  man 
less  fatally  than  London  society.  Had  he  been  rich,  this  form  of  ruin 
would  have  mattered  nothing ;  but  the  young  men  of  1865  were  none 
of  them  rich  ;  all  had  to  earn  a  living;  yet  they  had  reached  high  positions 
of  responsibility  and  power  in  camps  and  courts,  without  a  dollar  of  their 
own  and  with  no  tenure  of  office. 

Henry  Adams  had  failed  to  acquire  any  useful  education  ;  he  should 
at  least  have  acquired  social  experience.  Curiously  enough,  he  failed 
here  also.  From  the  European  or  English  point  of  view,  he  had  no 
social  experience,  and  never  got  it.  Minister  Adams  happened  on  a 
political  interregnum  owing  to  Lord  Palmerston's  personal  influence  from 
1860  to  1865  ;  but  this  political  interregnum  was  less  marked  than  the  social 
still-stand  during  the  same  years.  The  Prince  Consort  was  dead;  the 
Queen  had  retired  ;  the  Prince  of  Wales  was  still  a  boy.  In  its  best  days, 
Victorian  society  had  never  been  "  smart."  During  the  forties,  under 
the  influence  of  Louis  Philippe,  Courts  affected  to  be  simple,  serious 
and  middle-class ;  and  they  succeeded.  The  taste  of  Louis  Philippe 
was  bourgeois  beyond  any  taste  except  that  of  Queen  Victoria.  Style 
lingered  in  the  background  with  the  powdered  footman  behind  the 
yellow  chariot,  but  speaking  socially  the  Queen  had  no  style  save 
what  she  inherited.  Balmoral  was  a  startling  revelation  of  royal  taste. 
Nothing  could  be  worse  than  the  toilettes  at  Court  unless  it  were  the 
way  they  were  worn.  One's  eyes  might  be  dazzled  by  jewels,  but 
they  were  heirlooms,  and  if  any  lady  appeared  well-dressed,  she  was 
either  a  foreigner  or  "  fast."  Fashion  was  not  fashionable  in  London 
until  the  Americans  and  the  Jews  were  let  loose.  The  style  of 
London  toilette  universal  in  1864  was  grotesque,  like  Monckton  Milnes 
on  horseback  in  Rotten  Row. 

Society  of  this  sort  might  fit  a  young  man  in  some  degree  for 
editing  Shakespeare  or  Swift,  but  had  little  relation  with  the  society  of 
1870,  and  none  with  that  of  1900.  Owing  to  other  causes,  young 
Adams  never  got  the  full  training  of  such  style  as  still  existed.  The 
embarrassments  of  his  first  few  seasons  socially  ruined  him.  His  own 
want  of  experience  prevented  his  asking  introductions  to  the  ladies  who 


170  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

ruled  society ;  his  want  of  friends  prevented  his  knowing  who  these  ladies 
were  ;  and  he  had  every  reason  to  expect  snubbing  if  he  put  himself  in 
evidence.  This  sensitiveness  was  thrown  away  on  English  society,  where 
men  and  women  treated  each  others'  advances  much  more  brutally  than 
those  of  strangers,  but  young  Adams  was  son  and  private  secretary  too ; 
he  could  not  be  as  thick-skinned  as  an  Englishman.  He  was  not  alone. 
Every  young  diplomate,  and  most  of  the  old  ones,  felt  awkward  in  an 
English  house  from  a  certainty  that  they  were  not  precisely  wanted  there, 
and  a  possibility  that  they  might  be  told  so. 

If  there  was  in  those  days  a  country-house  in  England  which  had 
a  right  to  call  itself  broad  in  views  and  large  in  tastes,  it  was  Bretton 
in  Yorkshire ;  and  if  there  was  a  hostess  who  had  a  right  to  consider 
herself  fashionable  as  well  as  charming,  it  was  Lady  Margaret  Beaumont; 
yet  one  morning  at  breakfast  there,  sitting  by  her  side,  —  not  for  his 
own  merits, — Henry  Adams  heard  her  say  to  herself  in  her  languid  and 
liberal  way,  with  her  rich  voice  and  musing  manner,  looking  into  her 
tea-cup  : — "  I  don't  think  I  care  for  foreigners !  "  Horror-stricken,  not 
so  much  on  his  own  account  as  on  hers,  the  young  man  could  only  execute 
himself  as  gaily  as  he  might ;  — "  But  Lady  Margaret,  please  make  one 
small  exception  for  me ! "  Of  course  she  replied,  what  was  evident,  that 
she  did  not  call  him  a  foreigner,  and  her  genial  Irish  charm  made  the 
slip  of  tongue  a  happy  courtesy ;  but  none  the  less  she  knew  that,  except 
for  his  momentary  personal  introduction,  he  was  in  fact  a  foreigner,  and 
there  was  no  imaginable  reason  why  she  should  like  him,  or  any  other 
foreigner,  unless  it  were  because  she  was  bored  by  natives.  She  seemed 
to  feel  that  her  indifference  needed  a  reason  to  excuse  itself  in  her  own 
eyes,  and  she  showed  the  subconscious  sympathy  of  the  Irish  nature 
which  never  feels  itself  perfectly  at  home  even  in  England.  She,  too, 
was  some  shadowy  shade  un-English. 

Always  conscious  of  this  barrier,  while  the  war  lasted  the  private 
secretary  hid  himself  among  the  herd  of  foreigners  till  he  found  his 
relations  fixed  and  unchangeable.  He  never  felt  himself  in  society,  and 
he  never  knew  definitely  what  was  meant  as  society  by  those  who  were 
in  it.  He  saw  far  enough  to  note  a  score  of  societies  which  seemed 
quite  independent  of  each  other.  The  smartest  was  the  smallest,  and  to 
him  almost  wholly  strange.  The  largest  was  the  sporting  world,  also 


THE  PERFECTION  OF  HUMAN  SOCIETY  171 

unknown  to  him  except  through  the  talk  of  his  acquaintances.  Between 
or  beyond  these  lay  groups  of  nebulous  societies.  His  lawyer  friends, 
like  Evarts,  frequented  legal  circles  where  one  still  sat  over  the  wine 
and  told  anecdotes  of  the  bench  and  bar ;  but  he  himself  never  set  eyes 
on  a  judge  except  when  his  father  took  him  to  call  on  old  Lord  Lynd- 
hurst  where  they  found  old  Lord  Campbell,  both  abusing  old  Lord 
Brougham.  The  Church  and  the  Bishops  formed  several  societies  which 
no  secretary  ever  saw  except  as  an  interloper.  The  Army ;  the  Navy ; 
the  Indian  Service ;  the  medical  and  surgical  professions ;  City  people ; 
Artists ;  County  families ;  the  Scotch,  and  indefinite  other  subdivisions 
of  society  existed,  which  were  as  strange  to  each  other  as  they  were  to 
Adams.  At  the  end  of  eight  or  ten  seasons  in  London  society  he 
professed  to  know  less  about  it,  or  how  to  enter  it,  than  he  did  when 
he  made  his  first  appearance  at  Miss  Burdett  Coutts's  in  May,  1861. 

Sooner  or  later  every  young  man  dropped  into  a  set  or  circle,  and 
frequented  the  few  houses  that  were  willing  to  harbor  him.  An  American, 
who  neither  hunted  nor  raced ;  neither  shot  nor  fished  nor  gambled, 
and  was  not  marriageable,  had  no  need  to  think  of  society  at  large. 
Ninety-nine  houses  in  every  hundred  were  useless  to  him,  a  greater  bore 
to  him  than  he  to  them.  Thus  the  question  of  getting  into — or  getting 
out  of — society  which  troubled  young  foreigners  greatly,  settled  itself 
after  three  or  four  years  of  painful  speculation.  Society  had  no  unity ; 
one  wondered  about  in  it  like  a  maggot  in  cheese ;  it  was  not  a  Hansom 
cab,  to  be  got  into,  or  out  of,  at  dinner-time. 

Therefore  he  always  professed  himself  ignorant  of  society ;  he  never 
knew  whether  he  had  been  in  it  or  not,  but  from  the  accounts  of  his 
future  friends,  like  General  Dick  Taylor  or  George  Smalley,  and  of 
various  ladies  who  reigned  in  the  seventies,  he  inclined  to  think  that 
he  knew  very  little  about  it.  Certain  great  houses  and  certain  great 
functions  of  course  he  attended,  like  everyone  else  who  could  get  cards, 
but  even  of  these  the  number  was  small  that  kept  an  interest  or  helped 
education.  In  seven  years  he  could  remember  only  two  that  seemed  to 
have  any  meaning  for  him,  and  he  never  knew  what  that  meaning  was. 
Neither  of  the  two  was  official ;  neither  was  English  in  interest ;  and  both 
were  scandals  to  the  philosopher  while  they  scarcely  enlightened  men  of 
the  world. 


172  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

One  was  at  Devonshire  House,  an  ordinary,  unpremeditated  evening 
reception.  Naturally  everyone  went  to  Devonshire  House  if  asked,  and 
the  rooms  that  night  were  fairly  full  of  the  usual  people.  The  private 
secretary  was  standing  among  the  rest,  when  Mme.  de  Castiglione  entered, 
the  famous  beauty  of  the  Second  Empire.  How  beautiful  she  may  have 
been,  or  indeed  what  sort  of  beauty  she  was,  Adams  never  knew,  because 
the  company,  consisting  of  the  most  refined  and  aristocratic  society  in 
the  world,  instantly  formed  a  lane,  and  stood  in  ranks  to  stare  at  her, 
while  those  behind  mounted  on  chairs  to  look  over  their  neighbors'  heads ; 
so  that  the  lady  walked  through  this  polite  mob,  stared  completely  out 
of  countenance,  and  fled  the  house  at  once. — This  was  all! 

The  other  strange  spectacle  was  at  Stafford  House,  April  13,  1864, 
when,  in  a  palace-gallery  that  recalled  Paolo  Veronese's  pictures  of  Christ 
in  his  scenes  of  miracle,  Garibaldi,  in  his  gray  capote  over  his  red  shirt, 
received  all  London,  and  three  Duchesses  literally  worshipped  at  his  feet. 
Here,  at  all  events,  a  private  secretary  had  surely  caught  the  last  and 
highest  touch  of  social  experience;  but  what  it  meant, — what  social, 
moral  or  mental  development  it  pointed  out  to  the  searcher  of  truth, — 
was  not  a  matter  to  be  treated  fully  by  a  leader  in  the  Morning  Post 
or  even  by  a  sermon  in  Westminster  Abbey.  Mme.  de  Castiglione  and 
Garibaldi  covered,  between  them,  too  much  space  for  simple  measurement ; 
their  curves  were  too  complex  for  mere  arithmetic.  The  task  of  bringing 
the  two  into  any  common  relation  with  an  ordered  social  system  tending 
to  orderly  development  —  in  London  or  elsewhere  —  was  well  fitted  for 
Algernon  Swinburne  or  Victor  Hugo,  but  was  beyond  any  process  yet 
reached  by  the  education  of  Henry  Adams,  who  would  probably,  even 
then,  have  rejected,  as  superficial  or  supernatural,  all  the  views  taken  by 
any  of  the  company  who  looked  on  with  him  at  these  two  interesting 
and  perplexing  sights. 

From  the  Court,  or  Court  Society,  a  mere  private  secretary  got 
nothing  at  all,  or  next  to  nothing,  that  could  help  him  on  his  road 
through  life.  Koyalty  was  in  abeyance.  One  was  tempted  to  think  in 
these  years,  1860-65,  that  the  nicest  distinction  between  the  very  best 
society  and  the  second-best,  was  their  attitude  towards  royalty.  The  one 
regarded  royalty  as  a  bore,  and  avoided  it,  or  quietly  said  that  the  Queen 
had  never  been  in  society.  The  same  thing  might  have  been  said  of  fully 


THE   PERFECTION   OF  HUMAN  SOCIETY  173 

half  the  peerage.  Adams  never  knew  even  the  names  of  half  the  rest ; 
he  never  exchanged  ten  words  with  any  member  of  the  royal  family  ; 
he  never  knew  anyone  in  those  years  who  showed  interest  in  any  member 
of  the  royal  family,  or  who  would  have  given  five  shillings  for  the 
opinion  of  any  royal  person  on  any  subject ;  or  cared  to  enter  any  royal 
or  noble  presence,  unless  the  house  was  made  attractive  by  as  much 
social  effort  as  would  have  been  necessary  in  other  countries  where  no 
rank  existed.  No  doubt,  as  one  of  a  swarm,  young  Adams  slightly  knew 
various  gilded  youth  who  frequented  balls  and  led  such  dancing  as  was 
most  in  vogue,  but  they  seemed  to  set  no  value  on  rank  ;  their  anxiety  was 
only  to  know  where  to  find  the  best  partners  before  midnight,  and  the  best 
supper  after  midnight.  To  the  American,  as  to  Arthur  Pendennis  or  Barnes 
Newcome,  the  value  of  social  position  and  knowledge  was  evident  enough ;  he 
valued  it  at  rather  more  than  it  was  worth  to  him ;  but  it  was  a  shadowy 
thing  which  seemed  to  vary  with  every  street  corner ;  a  thing  which 
had  shifting  standards,  and  which  no  one  could  catch  outright.  The  half- 
dozen  leaders  and  beauties  of  his  time,  with  great  names  and  of  the  utmost 
fashion,  made  some  of  the  poorest  marriages,  and  the  least  showy  careers. 
Tired  of  looking  on  at  society  from  the  outside,  Adams  grew  to 
loathe  the  sight  of  his  court-dress ;  to  groan  at  every  announcement  of  a 
court-ball;  and  to  dread  every  invitation  to  a  formal  dinner.  The  greatest 
social  event  gave  not  half  the  pleasure  that  one  could  buy  for  ten 
shillings  at  the  Opera  when  Patti  sang  Cherubino  or  Gretchen,  and 
not  a  fourth  of  the  education.  Yet  this  was  not  the  opinion  of  the 
best  judges.  Lothrop  Motley,  who  stood  among  the  very  best,  said  to 
him  early  in  his  apprenticeship  that  the  London  dinner  and  the  English 
country-house  were  the  perfection  of  human  society.  The  young  man 
meditated  over  it,  uncertain  of  its  meaning.  Motley  could  not  have 
thought  the  dinner  itself  perfect,  since  there  was  not  then — outside  of 
a  few  bankers  or  foreigners — a  good  cook  or  a  good  table  in  London, 
and  nine  out  of  ten  of  the  dinners  that  Motley  eat  came  from  Gunter's, 
and  all  were  alike.  Everyone,  especially  in  young  society,  complained 
bitterly  that  Englishmen  did  not  know  a  good  dinner  when  they  eat 
it,  and  could  not  order  one  if  they  were  given  carte  blanche.  Henry 
Adams  was  not  a  judge,  and  knew  no  more  than  they,  but  he  heard 
the  complaints,  and  he  could  not  think  that  Motley  meant  to  praise  the 
English  cuisine. 


174  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

Equally  little  could  Motley  have  meant  that  dinners  were  good  to  look 
at.  Nothing  could  be  worse  than  the  toilettes ;  nothing  less  artistic  than 
the  appearance  of  the  company.  One's  eyes  might  be  dazzled  by  family 
diamonds,  but,  if  an  American  woman  were  present,  she  was  sure  to 
make  comments  about  the  way  the  jewels  were  worn.  If  there  was  a 
well-dressed  lady  at  table,  she  was  either  an  American  or  "  fast."  She 
attracted  as  much  notice  as  though  she  were  on  the  stage.  No  one 
could  possibly  admire  an  English  dinner-table. 

Least  of  all  did  Motley  mean  that  the  taste  or  the  manners  were 
perfect.  The  manners  of  English  society  were  notorious,  and  the  taste 
was  worse.  Without  exception  every  American  woman  rose  in  rebellion 
against  English  manners.  In  fact,  the  charm  of  London  which  made 
most  impression  on  Americans  was  the  violence  of  its  contrasts ;  the  extreme 
badness  of  the  worst,  making  background  for  the  distinction,  refinement  or 
wit  of  a  few,  just  as  the  extreme  beauty  of  a  few  superb  women  was  more 
effective  against  the  plainness  of  the  crowd.  The  result  was  mediaeval,  and 
amusing ;  sometimes  coarse  to  a  degree  that  might  have  startled  a 
roustabout,  and  sometimes  courteous  and  considerate  to  a  degree  that 
suggested  King  Arthur's  Round  Table ;  but  this  artistic  contrast  was 
surely  not  the  perfection  that  Motley  had  in  his  mind.  He  meant 
something  scholarly,  worldly  and  modern  ;  he  was  thinking  of  his  own 
tastes. 

Probably  he  meant  that,  in  his  favorite  houses,  the  tone  was  easy, 
the  talk  was  good,  and  the  standard  of  scholarship  was  high.  Even 
there  he  would  have  been  forced  to  qualify  his  adjectives.  No  German 
would  have  admitted  that  English  scholarship  was  high,  or  that  it  was 
scholarship  at  all,  or  that  any  wish  for  scholarship  existed  in  England. 
Nothing  that  seemed  to  smell  of  the  shop  or  of  the  lecture-room  was  wanted. 
One  might  as  well  have  talked  of  Kenan's  Christ  at  the  table  of  the 
Bishop  of  London,  as  talk  of  German  philology  at  the  table  of  an 
Oxford  don.  Society,  if  a  small  literary  class  could  be  called  society, 
wanted  to  be  amused  in  its  old  way.  Sydney  Smith,  who  had 
amused,  was  dead;  so  was  Macaulay,  who  instructed  if  he  did  not 
amuse;  Thackeray  died  at  Christmas,  1863;  Dickens  never  felt  at 
home,  and  seldom  appeared,  in  society ;  Bulwer  Lytton  was  not  sprightly ; 
Tennyson  detested  strangers ;  Carlyle  was  mostly  detested  by  them ; 
Darwin  never  came  to  town ;  the  men  of  whom  Motley  must  have  been 


THE  PERFECTION  OF  HUMAN  SOCIETY  175 

thinking  were  such  as  he  might  meet  at  Lord  Houghton's  breakfasts : — 
Grote,  Jowett,  Milman  or  Froude ;  Browning,  Matthew  Arnold  or 
Swinburne ;  Bishop  Wilberforce,  Venables  or  Hayward ;  or  perhaps 
Gladstone,  B,obert  Lowe  or  Lord  Granville.  A  relatively  small  class, 
commonly  isolated,  suppressed  and  lost  at  the  usual  London  dinner, 
such  society  as  this  was  fairly  familiar  even  to  a  private  secretary,  but 
to  the  literary  American  it  might  well  seem  perfection  since  he  could 
find  nothing  of  the  sort  in  America.  Within  the  narrow  limits  of  this 
class,  the  American  Legation  was  fairly  at  home;  possibly  a  score  of 
houses,  all  liberal,  and  all  literary,  but  perfect  only  in  the  eyes  of  a 
Harvard  College  historian.  They  could  teach  little  worth  learning,  for 
their  tastes  were  antiquated  and  their  knowledge  was  ignorance  to  the 
next  generation.  What  was  altogether  fatal  for  future  purposes,  they 
were  only  English. 

A  social  education  in  such  a  medium  was  bound  to  be  useless  in 
any  other,  yet  Adams  had  to  learn  it  to  the  bottom.  The  one  thing 
needful  for  a  private  secretary,  was  that  he  should  not  only  seem,  but 
should  actually  be,  at  home.  He  studied  carefully,  and  practised  pain 
fully,  what  seemed  to  be  the  favorite  accomplishments  of  society. 
Perhaps  his  nervousness  deceived  him ;  perhaps  he  took  for  an  ideal 
of  others  what  was  only  his  reflected  image ;  but  he  conceived  that  the 
perfection  of  human  society  required  that  a  man  should  enter  a  drawing- 
room  where  he  was  a  total  stranger,  and  place  himself  on  the  hearthrug, 
his  back  to  the  fire,  with  an  air  of  expectant  benevolence,  without 
curiosity,  much  as  though  he  had  dropped  in  at  a  charity  concert, 
kindly  disposed  to  applaud  the  performers  and  to  overlook  mistakes. 
This  ideal  rarely  succeeded  in  youth,  and  towards  thirty  it  took  a  form 
of  modified  insolence  and  offensive  patronage ;  but  about  sixty  it 
mellowed  into  courtesy,  kindliness,  and  even  deference  to  the  young 
which  had  extraordinary  charm  both  in  women  and  in  men.  Unfor 
tunately  Adams  could  not  wait  till  sixty  for  education ;  he  had  his 
living  to  earn ;  and  the  English  air  of  patronage  would  earn  no  income 
for  him  anywhere  else. 

After  five  or  six  years  of  constant  practice,  anyone  can  acquire  the 
habit  of  going  from  one  strange  company  to  another  without  thinking 
much  of  oneself  or  of  them,  as  though  silently  reflecting  that  "  in  a 


176  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

world  where  we  are  all  insects,  no  insect  is  alien  ;  perhaps  they  are  human 
in  parts  ;  "  but  the  dreamy  habit  of  mind  which  comes  from  solitude  in  crowds 
is  not  fitness  for  social  success  except  in  London.  Everywhere  else  it  is 
injury.  England  was  a  social  kingdom  whose  social  coinage  had  no 
currency  elsewhere. 

Englishwomen,  from  the  educational  point  of  view,  could  give  nothing 
until  they  approached  forty  years  old.  Then  they  become  very  inter 
esting — very  charming,— to  the  man  of  fifty.  The  young  American  was 
not  worth  the  young  Englishwoman's  notice,  and  never  received  it. 
Neither  understood  the  other.  Only  in  the  domestic  relation,  in  the 
country, — never  in  society  at  large, — a  young  American  might  accidentally 
make  friends  with  an  Englishwoman  of  his  own  age,  but  it  never 
happened  to  Henry  Adams.  His  susceptible  nature  was  left  to  the  mercy 
of  American  girls,  which  was  professional  duty  rather  than  education  as 
long  as  diplomacy  held  its  own. 

Thus  he  found  himself  launched  on  waters  where  he  had  never  meant 
to  sail,  and  floating  along  a  stream  which  carried  him  far  from  his  port. 
His  third  season  in  London  society  saw  the  end  of  his  diplomatic 
education,  and  began  for  him  the  social  life  of  a  young  man  who  felt 
at  home  in  England,  —  more  at  home  there  than  anywhere  else.  With 
this  feeling,  the  mere  habit  of  going  to  garden  parties,  dinners,  receptions 
and  balls,  had  nothing  to  do.  One  might  go  to  scores  without  a  sensation 
of  home.  One  might  stay  in  no  end  of  country  houses  without  forgetting 
that  one  was  a  total  stranger  and  could  never  be  anything  else.  One 
might  bow  to  half  the  Dukes  and  Duchesses  in  England,  and  feel 
only  the  more  strange.  Hundreds  of  persons  might  pass  with  a  nod  and 
never  come  nearer.  Close  relation  in  a  place  like  London  is  a  personal 
mystery  as  profound  as  chemical  affinity.  Thousands  pass,  and  one 
separates  himself  from  the  mass  to  attach  himself  to  another,  and  so 
make,  little  by  little,  a  group. 

One  morning,  April  27,  1863,  he  was  asked  to  breakfast  with  Sir 
Henry  Holland,  the  old  Court  physician  who  had  been  acquainted  with 
every  American  Minister  since  Edward  Everett,  and  was  a  valuable  social 
ally,  who  had  the  courage  to  try  to  be  of  use  to  everybody,  and  who, 
while  asking  the  private  secretary  to  breakfast  one  day,  was  too  discreet 
to  betray  what  he  might  have  learned  about  rebel  doings  at  his  breakfast- 


THE  PERFECTION  OF  HUMAN  SOCIETY  177 

table  the  day  before.  He  had  been  friendly  with  the  Legation,  in  the 
teeth  of  society,  and  was  still  bearing  up  against  the  weight  of  opinion, 
so  that  young  Adams  could  not  decline  his  invitations,  although  they 
obliged  him  to  breakfast  in  Brook  Street  at  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
alternately  with  Mr.  James  M.  Mason.  Old  Doctor  Holland  was  him 
self  as  hale  as  a  hawk,  driving  all  day  bare-headed  about  London,  and 
eating  Welsh  rarebit  every  night  before  bed ;  he  thought  that  any  young 
man  should  be  pleased  to  take  his  early  muffin  in  Brook  Street,  and 
supply  a  few  crumbs  of  war-news  for  the  daily  peckings  of  eminent 
patients.  Meekly,  when  summoned,  the  private  secretary  went,  and  on 
reaching  the  front  door,  this  particular  morning,  he  found  there  another 
young  man  in  the  act  of  rapping  the  knocker.  They  entered  the  break 
fast-room  together,  where  they  were  introduced  to  each  other,  and  Adams 
learned  that  the  other  guest  was  a  Cambridge  undergraduate,  Charles 
Milnes  Gaskell,  son  of  James  Milnes  Gaskell,  the  member  for  Wenlock  ; 
another  of  the  Yorkshire  Milneses,  from  Thornes  near  Wakefield.  Fate 
had  fixed  Adams  to  Yorkshire.  By  another  chance  it  happened  that 
young  Milnes  Gaskell  was  intimate  at  Cambridge  with  William  Everett 
who  was  also  about  to  take  his  degree.  A  third  chance  inspired  Mr. 
Evarts  with  a  fancy  for  visiting  Cambridge,  and  led  William  Everett  to 
offer  his  services  as  host.  Adams  acted  as  courier  to  Mr.  Evarts,  and  at 
the  end  of  May  they  went  down  for  a  few  days,  when  William  Everett 
did  the  honors  as  host  with  a  kindness  and  attention  that  made  his 
cousin  sorely  conscious  of  his  own  social  shortcomings.  Cambridge  was 
pretty,  and  the  dons  were  kind.  Mr.  Evarts  enjoyed  his  visit,  but  this 
was  merely  a  part  of  the  private  secretary's  day's  work.  What  affected 
his  whole  life  was  the  intimacy  then  begun  with  Milnes  Gaskell  and 
his  circle  of  undergraduate  friends,  just  about  to  enter  the  world. 

Intimates  are  predestined.  Adams  met  in  England  a  thousand  people, 
great  and  small ;  jostled  against  everyone,  from  royal  princes  to  gin-shop 
loafers  ;  attended  endless  official  functions  and  private  parties  ;  visited  every 
part  of  the  United  Kingdom  and  was  not  quite  a  stranger  at  the  Legations 
in  Paris  and  Rome ;  he  knew  the  societies  of  certain  country-houses,  and 
acquired  habits  of  Sunday-afternoon  calls ;  but  all  this  gave  him  nothing 
to  do,  and  was  life  wasted.  For  him  nothing  whatever  could  be  gained 
by  escorting  American  ladies  to  drawing-rooms  or  American  gentlemen 
12 


178  THE '  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

to  levees  at  St.  James's  Palace,  or  bowing  solemnly  to  people  with  great 
titles,  at  Court  Balls,  or  even  by  awkwardly  jostling  royalty  at  garden- 
parties  ;  all  this  was  done  for  the  government,  and  neither  President 
Lincoln  nor  Secretary  Seward  would  ever  know  enough  of  their  business 
to  thank  him  for  doing  what  they  did  not  know  how  to  get  properly 
done  by  their  own  servants;  but  for  Henry  Adams,  —  not  private  secretary, 
—  all  the  time  taken  up  by  such  duties  was  wasted.  On  the  other  hand, 
his  few  personal  intimacies  concerned  him  alone,  and  the  chance  that 
made  him  almost  a  Yorkshireman  was  one  that  must  have  started  under 
the  Heptarchy. 

More  than  any  other  county  in  England,  Yorkshire  retained  a  sort 
of  social  independence  of  London.  Scotland  itself  was  hardly  more 
distinct.  The  Yorkshire  type  had  always  been  the  strongest  of  the 
British  strains ;  the  Norwegian  and  the  Dane  were  a  different  race  from 
the  Saxon.  Even  Lancashire  had  not  the  mass  and  the  cultivation  of 
the  West  Riding.  London  could  never  quite  absorb  Yorkshire,  which, 
in  its  turn  had  no  great  love  for  London  and  freely  showed  it.  To  a 
certain  degree,  evident  enough  to  Yorkshiremen,  Yorkshire  was  not 
English, — or  was  all  England,  as  they  might  choose  to  express  it.  This 
must  have  been  the  reason  why  young  Adams  was  drawn  there  rather 
than  elsewhere.  Monckton  Milnes  alone  took  the  trouble  to  draw  him, 
and  possibly  Milnes  was  the  only  man  in  England  with  whom  Henry 
Adams,  at  that  moment,  had  a  chance  of  calling  out  such  an  un-English 
effort.  Neither  Oxford  nor  Cambridge  nor  any  region  south  of  the  Hum- 
ber  contained  a  considerable  house  where  a  young  American  would  have 
been  sought  as  a  friend.  Eccentricity  alone  did  not  account  for  it. 
Monckton  Milnes  was  a  singular  type,  but  his  distant  cousin,  James 
Milnes  Gaskell,  was  another,  quite  as  marked,  in  an  opposite  sense.  Milnes 
never  seemed  willing  to  rest ;  Milnes  Gaskell  never  seemed  willing  to  move. 
In  his  youth  one  of  a  very  famous  group, — Arthur  Hallam,  Tennyson, 
Manning,  Gladstone,  Francis  Doyle, — and  regarded  as  one  of  the  most 
promising ;  an  adorer  of  George  Canning ;  in  Parliament  since  coming  of 
age ;  married  into  the  powerful  connection  of  the  Wynns  of  Wynstay ; 
rich  according  to  Yorkshire  standards ;  intimate  with  his  political  leaders; 
he  was  one  of  the  numerous  Englishmen  who  refuse  office  rather  than 
make  the  effort  of  carrying  it,  and  want  power  only  to  make  it  a  source  of 


THE  PERFECTION  OF  HUMAN  SOCIETY  179 

indolence.  He  was  a  voracious  reader  and  an  admirable  critic ;  he  had 
forty  years  of  parliamentary  tradition  on  his  memory ;  he  liked  to  talk  and 
to  listen ;  he  liked  his  dinner  and,  in  spite  of  George  Canning,  his  dry 
champagne ;  he  liked  wit  and  anecdote ;  but  he  belonged  to  the  generation 
of  1830,  a  generation  which  could  not  survive  the  telegraph  and  railway, 
and  which  even  Yorkshire  could  hardly  produce  again.  To  an  American 
he  was  a  character  even  more  unusual  and  more  fascinating  than  his 
distant  cousin  Lord  Hough  ton. 

Mr.  Milnes  Gaskell  was  kind  to  the  young  American  whom  his 
son  brought  to  the  house,  and  Mrs.  Milnes  Gaskell  was  kinder,  for  she 
thought  the  American  perhaps  a  less  dangerous  friend  than  some  English 
men  might  be,  for  her  son,  and  she  was  probably  right.  The  American 
had  the  sense  to  see  that  she  was  herself  one  of  the  most  intelligent 
and  sympathetic  women  in  England ;  her  sister,  Miss  Charlotte  Wynn, 
was  another ;  and  both  were  of  an  age  and  a  position  in  society  that 
made  their  friendship  a  compliment  as  well  as  a  pleasure.  Their  consent 
and  approval  settled  the  matter.  In  England,  the  family  is  a  serious 
fact ;  once  admitted  to  it,  one  is  there  for  life.  London  might  utterly 
vanish  from  one's  horizon,  but  as  long  as  life  lasted,  Yorkshire  lived 
for  its  friends. 

In  the  year  1864,  just  as  this  new  intimacy  was  forming,  Mr.  James 
Milnes  Gaskell,  who  had  sat  for  thirty  years  in  Parliament  as  one  of 
the  members  for  the  borough  of  Wenlock  in  Shropshire,  bought  Wenlock 
Abbey  and  the  estate  that  included  the  old  monastic  buildings.  This  new, 
or  old,  plaything  amused  Mrs.  Milnes  Gaskell.  The  Prior's  house,  a 
charming  specimen  of  fifteenth-century  architecture,  had  been  long  left 
to  decay  as  a  farm-house.  She  put  it  in  order,  and  went  there  to  spend 
a  part  of  the  autumn.  Young  Adams  was  one  of  her  first  guests,  and 
drove  about  Wenlock  Edge  and  the  Wrekin  with  her,  learning  the 
loveliness  of  this  exquisite  country,  and  its  stores  of  curious  antiquity. 
It  was  a  new  and  charming  existence ;  an  experience  greatly  to  be 
envied — ideal  repose  and  rural  Shakespearian  peace, — but  a  few  years  of 
it  were  likely  to  complete  his  education,  and  fit  him  to  act  a  fairly 
useful  part  in  life  as  an  Englishman,  an  ecclesiastic,  and  a  contemporary 
of  Chaucer. 


CHAPTER    XIV 

1865-1866 

The  campaign  of  1864  and  the  reelection  of  Mr.  Lincoln  in  Novem 
ber  set  the  American  Minister  on  so  firm  a  footing  that  he  could  safely 
regard  his  own  anxieties  as  over,  and  the  anxieties  of  Earl  Russell  and 
the  Emperor  Napoleon  as  begun.  With  a  few  months  more  his  own 
term  of  four  years  would  come  to  an  end,  and  even  though  the  questions 
still  under  discussion  with  England  should  somewhat  prolong  his  stay, 
he  might  look  forward  with  some  confidence  to  his  return  home  in  1865. 
His  son  no  longer  fretted.  The  time  for  going  into  the  army  had 
passed.  If  he  were  to  be  useful  at  all,  it  must  be  as  a  son,  and  as  a 
son  he  was  treated  with  the  widest  indulgence  and  trust.  He  knew  that 
he  was  doing  himself  no  good  by  staying  in  London,  but  thus  far  in 
life  he  had  done  himself  no  good  anywhere,  and  reached  his  twenty- 
seventh  birthday  without  having  advanced  a  step,  that  he  could  see, 
beyond  his  twenty-first.  For  the  most  part,  his  friends  were  worse  off 
than  he.  The  war  was  about  to  end  and  they  were  to  be  set  adrift 
in  a  world  they  would  find  altogether  strange. 

At  this  point,  as  though  to  cut  the  last  thread  of  relation,  six 
months  were  suddenly  dropped  out  of  his  life  in  England.  The 
London  climate  had  told  on  some  of  the  family ;  the  physicians  pres 
cribed  a  winter  in  Italy ;  of  course  the  private  secretary  was  detached 
as  their  escort,  since  this  was  one  of  his  professional  functions ;  and  he 
passed  six  months,  gaining  an  education  as  Italian  courier,  while  the 
civil  war  came  to  its  end.  As  far  as  other  education  went,  he  got  none, 
but  he  was  amused.  Travelling  in  all  possible  luxury,  at  some  one 
else's  expense,  with  diplomatic  privileges  and  position,  was  a  form  of 
180 


DILETTANTISM  181 

travel  hitherto  untried.  The  Cornice  in  vettura  was  delightful ;  Sorrento 
in  winter  offered  hills  to  climb  and  grottos  to  explore,  and  Naples  near 
by  to  visit ;  Rome  at  Easter  was  an  experience  necessary  for  the  education 
of  every  properly  trained  private  secretary ;  the  journey  north  by  vettura 
through  Perugia  and  Sienna  was  a  dream ;  the  Spliigen  Pass,  if  not  equal 
to  the  Stelvio,  was  worth  seeing ;  Paris  had  always  something  to  show. 
The  chances  of  accidental  education  were  not  so  great  as  they  had  been, 
since  one's  field  of  experience  had  grown  large ;  but  perhaps  a  season  at 
Baden  Baden  in  these  later  days  of  its  brilliancy  offered  some  chances 
of  instruction,  if  it  were  only  the  sight  of  fashionable  Europe  and  America 
on  the  race-course  watching  the  Duke  of  Hamilton,  in  the  middle,  improv 
ing  his  social  advantages  by  the  conversation  of  Cora  Pearl. 

The  assassination  of  President  Lincoln  fell  on  the  party  while  they 
were  at  Rome,  where  it  seemed  singularly  fitting  to  that  nursery  of 
murderers  and  murdered,  as  though  America  were  also  getting  educated. 
Again  one  went  to  meditate  on  the  steps  of  Santa  Maria  in  Ara  Coeli, 
but  the  lesson  seemed  as  shallow  as  before.  Nothing  happened.  The 
travellers  changed  no  plan  or  movement.  The  Minister  did  not  recall 
them  to  London.  The  season  was  over  before  they  returned ;  and  when 
the  private  secretary  sat  down  again  at  his  desk  in  Portland  Place  before 
a  mass  of  copy  in  arrears,  he  saw  before  him  a  world  so  changed  as  to 
be  beyond  connection  with  the  past.  His  identity,  if  one  could  call  a 
bundle  of  disconnected  memories  an  identity,  seemed  to  remain ;  but 
his  life  was  once  more  broken  into  separate  pieces ;  he  was  a  spider 
and  had  to  spin  a  new  web  in  some  new  place  with  a  new  attachment. 

All  his  American  friends  and  contemporaries  who  were  still  alive 
looked  singularly  commonplace  without  uniforms,  and  hastened  to  get 
married  and  retire  into  back-streets  and  suburbs  until  they  could  find 
employment.  Minister  Adams,  too,  was  going  home  "  next  fall,"  and 
when  the  fall  came,  he  was  going  home  "  next  spring,"  and  when  the 
spring  came,  President  Andrew  Johnson  was  at  loggerheads  with  the 
Senate,  and  found  it  best  to  keep  things  unchanged.  After  the  usual 
manner  of  public  servants  who  have  acquired  the  habit  of  office  and  lost 
the  faculty  of  will,  the  members  of  the  Legation  in  London  continued 
the  daily  routine  of  English  society,  which,  after  becoming  a  habit, 
threatened  to  become  a  vice.  Had  Henry  Adams  shared  a  single  taste 


182  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

with  the  young  Englishmen  of  his  time,  he  would  have  been  lost ;  but 
the  custom  of  pounding  up  and  down  Rotten  Row  every  day,  on  a  hack, 
was  not  a  taste,  and  yet  was  all  the  sport  he  shared.  Evidently  he 
must  set  to  work ;  he  must  get  a  new  education ;  he  must  begin  a  career 
of  his  own. 

Nothing  was  easier  to  say,  but  even  his  father  admitted  two  careers 
to  be  closed.  For  the  law,  diplomacy  had  unfitted  him ;  for  diplomacy 
he  already  knew  too  much.  Anyone  who  had  held,  during  the  four 
most  difficult  years  of  American  diplomacy,  a  position  at  the  centre  of 
action,  with  his  hands  actually  touching  the  lever  of  power,  could  not 
beg  a  post  of  Secretary  at  Vienna  or  Madrid  in  order  to  bore  himself 
doing  nothing  until  the  next  President  should  do  him  the  honor  to  turn 
him  out.  For  once  all  his  advisers  agreed  that  diplomacy  was  not  possible. 

In  any  ordinary  system  he  would  have  been  called  back  to  serve 
in  the  State  Department,  but,  between  the  President  and  the  Senate, 
service  of  any  sort  became  a  delusion.  The  choice  of  career  was  more 
difficult  than  the  education  which  had  proved  impracticable.  Adams 
saw  no  road ;  in  fact  there  was  none.  All  his  friends  were  trying 
one  path  or  another  but  none  went  a  way  that  he  could  have  taken. 
John  Hay  passed  through  London  in  order  to  bury  himself  in  second- 
rate  Legations  for  years,  before  he  drifted  home  again  to  join  Whitelaw 
Reid  and  George  Smalley  on  the  Tribune.  Frank  Barlow  and  Frank 
Bartlett  carried  Major  General's  commissions  into  small  law-business. 
Miles  stayed  in  the  army.  Henry  Higginson,  after  a  desperate  struggle, 
was  forced  into  State  Street ;  Charles  Adams  wandered  about,  with 
brevet-brigadier  rank,  trying  to  find  employment.  Scores  of  others 
tried  experiments  more  or  less  unsuccessful.  Henry  Adams  could  see 
easy  ways  of  making  a  hundred  blunders ;  he  could  see  no  likely  way 
of  making  a  legitimate  success.  Such  as  it  was,  his  so-called  education 
was  wanted  nowhere. 

One  profession  alone  seemed  possible, — the  Press.  In  1860  he 
would  have  said  that  he  was  born  to  be  an  editor,  like  at  least  a  thousand 
other  young  graduates  from  American  colleges  who  entered  the  world 
every  year  enjoying  the  same  conviction ;  but  in  1866  the  situation  was 
altered ;  the  possession  of  money  had  become  doubly  needful  for  success, 
and  double  energy  was  essential  to  get  money.  America  had  more  than 


DILETTANTISM  183 

doubled  her  scale.  Yet  the  press  was  still  the  last  resource  of  the  educated 
poor  who  could  not  be  artists  and  would  not  be  tutors.  Any  man  who 
was  fit  for  nothing  else  could  write  an  editorial  or  a  criticism.  The 
enormous  mass  of  misinformation  accumulated  in  ten  years  of  nomad 
life  could  always  be  worked  off  on  a  helpless  public,  in  diluted  doses,  if 
one  could  but  secure  a  table  in  the  corner  of  a  newspaper  office.  The 
press  was  an  inferior  pulpit ;  an  anonymous  school-master ;  a  cheap 
boarding-school ;  but  it  was  still  the  nearest  approach  to  a  career  for  the 
literary  survivor  of  a  wrecked  education.  For  the  press,  then,  Henry 
Adams  decided  to  fit  himself,  and  since  he  could  not  go  home  to  get 
practical  training,  he  set  to  work  to  do  what  he  could  in  London. 

He  knew,  as  well  as  any  reporter  on  the  New  York  Herald,  that 
this  was  not  an  American  way  of  beginning,  and  he  knew  a  certain 
number  of  other  drawbacks  which  the  reporter  could  not  see  so  clearly. 
Do  what  he  might,  he  drew  breath  only  in  the  atmosphere  of  English 
methods  and  thoughts ;  he  could  breathe  none  other.  His  mother  averred 
that  every  woman  who  lived  a  certain  time  in  England  came  to  look 
and  dress  like  an  Englishwoman,  no  matter  how  she  struggled.  Henry 
Adams  felt  himself  catching  an  English  tone  of  mind  and  processes  of 
thought,  though  at  heart  more  hostile  to  them  than  ever.  As  though  to 
make  him  more  helpless  and  wholly  distort  his  life,  England  grew  more 
and  more  agreeable  and  amusing.  Minister  Adams  became,  in  1866, 
almost  a  historical  monument  in  London  ;  he  held  a  position  altogether 
his  own.  His  old  opponents  disappeared.  Lord  Palmerston  died  in 
October,  1865 ;  Lord  Russell  tottered  on  six  months  longer,  but  then 
vanished  from  power ;  and  in  July,  1866,  the  conservatives  came  into  office. 
Traditionally  the  Tories  were  easier  to  deal  with  than  the  Whigs,  and 
Minister  Adams  had  no  reason  to  regret  the  change.  His  personal  relations 
were  excellent  and  his  personal  weight  increased  year  by  year.  On  that 
score  the  private  secretary  had  no  cares,  and  not  much  copy.  His  own 
position  was  modest,  but  it  was  enough ;  the  life  he  led  was  agreeable ; 
his  friends  were  all  he  wanted,  and,  except  that  he  was  at  the  mercy 
of  politics,  he  felt  much  at  ease.  Of  his  daily  life  he  had  only  to  reckon 
so  many  breakfasts ;  so  many  dinners ;  so  many  receptions,  balls,  theatres 
and  country -parties ;  so  many  cards  to  be  left ;  so  many  Americans  to  be 
escorted ;  —  the  usual  routine  of  every  young  American  in  a  Legation ; 


184  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

all  counting  for  nothing  in  sum,  because,  even  if  it  had  been  his  official 
duty  —  which  it  was  not, — it  was  mere  routine,  a  single,  continuous,  un 
broken  act,  which  led  to  nothing  and  nowhere  except  Portland  Place  and 
the  grave. 

The  path  that  led  somewhere  was  the  English  habit  of  mind  which 
deepened  its  ruts  every  day.  The  English  mind  was  like  the  London 
drawing-room,  a  comfortable  and  easy  spot,  filled  with  bits  and  fragments 
of  incoherent  furnitures,  which  were  never  meant  to  go  together,  and 
could  be  arranged  in  any  relation  without  making  a  whole,  except 
by  the  square  room.  Philosophy  might  dispute  about  innate  ideas  till 
the  stars  died  out  in  the  sky,  but  about  innate  tastes  no  one,  except 
perhaps  a  collie-dog,  has  the  right  to  doubt ;  least  of  all,  the  English 
man,  for  his  tastes  are  his  being ;  he  drifts  after  them  as  unconsciously 
as  a  honey-bee  drifts  after  his  flowers,  and,  in  England,  everyone  must 
drift  with  him.  Most  young  Englishmen  drifted  to  the  race-course  or 
the  moors  or  the  hunting-field ;  a  few  towards  books ;  one  or  two 
followed  some  form  of  science ;  and  a  number  took  to  what,  for  want  of  a 
better  name,  they  called  art.  Young  Adams  inherited  a  certain  taste  for  the 
same  pursuit  from  his  father  who  insisted  that  he  had  it  not,  because 
he  could  not  see  what  his  son  thought  he  saw  in  Turner.  The 
Minister,  on  the  other  hand,  carried  a  sort  of  esthetic  ragbag  of  his 
own,  which  he  regarded  as  amusement,  and  never  called  art.  So  he 
would  wander  off  on  a  Sunday  to  attend  service  successively  in  all  the 
city  churches  built  by  Sir  Christopher  Wren ;  or  he  would  disappear 
from  the  Legation  day  after  day  to  attend  coin-sales  at  Sotheby's,  where 
his  son  attended  alternate  sales  of  drawings,  engravings  or  water-colors. 
Neither  knew  enough  to  talk  much  about  the  other's  tastes,  but  the 
only  difference  between  them  was  a  slight  difference  of  direction.  The 
Minister's  mind  like  his  writings  showed  a  correctness  of  form  and  line 
that  his  son  would  have  been  well  pleased  had  he  inherited. 

Of  all  supposed  English  tastes,  that  of  art  was  the  most  alluring 
and  treacherous.  Once  drawn  into  it,  one  had  small  chance  of  escape, 
for  it  had  no  centre  or  circumference,  no  beginning,  middle  or  end,  no 
origin,  no  object  and  no  conceivable  result  as  education.  In  London  one 
met  no  corrective.  The  only  American  who  came  by,  capable  of  teach 
ing,  was  William  Hunt,  who  stopped  to  paint  the  portrait  of  the 


DILETTANTISM  185 

Minister  which  now  completes  the  family  series  at  Harvard  College. 
Hunt  talked  constantly,  and  was,  or  afterwards  became,  a  famous  teacher, 
but  Henry  Adams  did  not  know  enough  to  learn.  Perhaps,  too,  he 
had  inherited  or  acquired  a  stock  of  tastes,  as  young  men  must,  which 
he  was  slow  to  outgrow.  Hunt  had  no  time  to  sweep  out  the  rubbish 
of  Adams's  mind.  The  portrait  finished,  he  went. 

As  often  as  he  could,  Adams  ran  over  to  Paris,  for  sunshine,  and 
there  always  sought  out  Richardson  in  his  attic  in  the  Rue  du  Bac,  or 
wherever  he  lived,  and  they  went  off  to  dine  at  the  Palais  Royal,  and 
talk  of  whatever  interested  the  students  of  the  Beaux  Arts.  Richardson, 
too,  had  much  to  say,  but  had  not  yet  seized  his  style.  Adams  caught 
very  little  of  what  lay  in  his  mind,  and  the  less,  because,  to  Adams, 
everything  French  was  bad  except  the  restaurants,  while  the  continuous 
life  in  England  made  French  art  seem  worst  of  all.  This  did  not  prove 
that  English  art,  in  1866,  was  good ;  far  from  it ;  but  it  helped  to  make 
bric-a-brac  of  all  art,  after  the  manner  of  England. 

Not  in  the  Legation,  or  in  London,  but  in  Yorkshire  at  Thornes, 
Adams  met  the  man  that  pushed  him  furthest  in  this  English  garden 
of  innate  disorder  called  taste.  The  older  daughter  of  the  Milnes 
Gaskells  had  married  Francis  Turner  Palgrave.  Few  Americans  will 
ever  ask  whether  anyone  has  described  the  Palgraves,  but  the  family 
was  one  of  the  most  describable  in  all  England  at  that  day.  Old  Sir 
Francis,  the  father,  had  been  much  the  greatest  of  all  the  historians 
of  early  England,  the  only  one  who  was  un-English ;  and  the  reason  of 
his  superiority  lay  in  his  name,  which  was  Cohen,  and  his  mind  which 
was  Cohen  also,  or  at  least  not  English.  He  changed  his  name  to 
Palgrave  in  order  to  please  his  wife.  They  had  a  band  of  remarkable 
sons : — Francis  Turner,  Gifford,  Reginald,  Inglis ;  all  of  whom  made 
their  mark.  Gifford  was  perhaps  the  most  eccentric,  but  his  Travels  in 
Arabia  were  famous,  even  among  the  famous  travels  of  that  generation. 
Francis  Turner — or,  as  he  was  commonly  called,  Frank  Palgrave, — 
unable  to  work  off  his  restlessness  in  travel  like  Gifford,  and  stifled  in  the 
atmosphere  of  the  Board  of  Education,  became  a  critic.  His  art- 
criticisms  helped  to  make  the  Saturday  Review  a  terror  to  the  British 
artist.  His  literary  taste,  condensed  into  the  Golden  Treasury,  helped 
Adams  to  more  literary  education  than  he  ever  got  from  any  taste  of  his 


186  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

own.  Palgrave  himself  held  rank  as  one  of  the  minor  poets ;  his  hymns 
had  vogue.  As  an  art-critic  he  was  too  ferocious  to  be  liked ;  even 
Holman  Hunt  found  his  temper  humorous;  among  many  rivals,  he  may 
perhaps  have  had  a  right  to  claim  the  much-disputed  rank  of  being  the 
most  unpopular  man  in  London ;  but  he  liked  to  teach,  and  asked  only 
for  a  docile  pupil.  Adams  was  docile  enough,  for  he  knew  nothing  and 
liked  to  listen.  Indeed  he  had  to  listen,  whether  he  liked  or  not,  for 
Palgrave's  voice  was  strident,  and  nothing  could  stop  him.  Literature, 
painting,  sculpture,  architecture  were  open  fields  for  his  attacks,  which 
were  always  intelligent  if  not  always  kind,  and  when  these  failed,  he 
readily  descended  to  meaner  levels.  John  Richard  Green,  who  was 
Palgrave's  precise  opposite,  and  whose  Irish  charm  of  touch  and  humor 
defended  him  from  most  assaults,  used  to  tell  with  delight  of  Palgrave's 
call  on  him  just  after  he  had  moved  into  his  new  Queen  Anne  house  in 
Kensington  Square:  —  "Palgrave  called  yesterday,  and  the  first  thing  he 
said  was:  —  'I've  counted  three  anachronisms  on  your  front  door-step.'' 

Another  savage  critic,  also  a  poet,  was  Thomas  Woolner,  a  type 
almost  more  emphatic  than  Palgrave  in  a  society  which  resounded  with 
emphasis.  Woolner's  sculpture  showed  none  of  the  rough  assertion  that 
Woolner  himself  showed,  when  he  was  not  making  supernatural  effort 
to  be  courteous,  but  his  busts  were  remarkable,  and  his  work  altogether 
was,  in  Palgrave's  clamorous  opinion,  the  best  of  his  day.  He  took 
the  matter  of  British  art,  —  or  want  of  art, — seriously,  almost  ferociously, 
as  a  personal  grievance  and  torture ;  at  times  he  was  rather  terrifying  in 
the  anarchistic  wrath  of  his  denunciation.  As  Henry  Adams  felt  no 
responsibility  for  English  art,  and  had  no  American  art  to  offer  for 
sacrifice,  he  listened  with  enjoyment  to  language  much  like  Carlyle's,  and 
accepted  it  without  a  qualm.  On  the  other  hand,  as  a  third  member  of 
this  critical  group,  he  fell  in  with  Stopford  Brooke  whose  tastes  lay  in 
the  same  direction,  and  whose  expression  was  modified  by  clerical  propriety. 
Among  these  men,  one  wandered  off  into  paths  of  education  much  too 
devious  and  slippery  for  an  American  foot  to  follow.  He  would  have 
done  better  to  go  on  the  race-track,  as  far  as  concerned  a  career. 

Fortunately  for  him  he  knew  too  little  ever  to  be  an  art-critic,  still 
less  an  artist.  For  some  things  ignorance  is  good,  and  art  is  one  of  them. 
He  knew  he  knew  nothing,  and  had  not  the  trained  eye  or  the  keen 


DILETTANTISM  187 

instinct  that  trusted  itself;  but  he  was  curious,  as  he  went  on,  to  find 
out  how  much  others  knew.  He  took  Palgrave's  word  as  final  about 
a  drawing  of  Rembrandt  or  Michael  Angelo,  and  he  trusted  Woolner 
implicitly  about  a  Turner ;  but  when  he  quoted  their  authority  to  any 
dealer,  the  dealer  pooh-poohed  it,  and  declared  that  it  had  no  weight  in 
the  trade.  If  he  went  to  a  sale  of  drawings  or  paintings,  at  Sotheby's  or 
Christie's,  an  hour  afterwards,  he  saw  these  same  dealers  watching  Palgrave 
or  Woolner  for  a  point,  and  bidding  over  them.  He  rarely  found  two 
dealers  agree  in  judgment.  He  once  bought  a  water-color  from  the 
artist  himself,  out  of  his  studio,  and  had  it  doubted  an  hour  afterwards 
by  the  dealer  to  whose  place  he  took  it  for  framing.  He  was  reduced  to 
admit  that  he  could  not  prove  its  authenticity ;  internal  evidence  was 
against  it. 

One  morning  in  early  July,  1867,  Palgrave  stopped  at  the  Legation 
in  Portland  Place  on  his  way  down  town,  and  offered  to  take  Adams 
to  Sotheby's,  where  a  small  collection  of  old  drawings  was  on  show.  The 
collection  was  rather  a  curious  one,  said  to  be  that  of  Sir  Anthony 
Westcomb,  from  Liverpool,  with  an  undisturbed  record  of  a  century, 
but  with  nothing  to  attract  notice.  Probably  none  but  collectors  or 
experts  examined  the  portfolios.  Some  dozens  of  these  were  always  on 
hand,  following  every  sale,  and  especially  on  the  lookout  for  old  drawings, 
which  became  rarer  every  year.  Turning  rapidly  over  the  numbers, 
Palgrave  stopped  at  one  containing  several  small  drawings,  one  marked 
as  Rembrandt,  one  as  Rafael ;  and  putting  his  finger  on  the  Rafael,  after 
careful  examination  ; — "  I  should  buy  this,"  he  said  ;  "  it  looks  to  me  like 
one  of  those  things  that  sell  for  five  shillings  one  day,  and  fifty  pounds  the 
next."  Adams  marked  it  for  a  bid,  and  the  next  morning  came  down  to 
the  auction.  The  numbers  sold  slowly,  and  at  noon  he  thought  he 
might  safely  go  to  lunch.  When  he  came  back,  half  an  hour  after 
wards,  the  drawing  was  gone.  Much  annoyed  at  his  own  stupidity,  since 
Palgrave  had  expressly  said  he  wanted  the  drawing  for  himself  if  he 
had  not  in  a  manner  given  it  to  Adams,  the  culprit  waited  for  the 
sale  to  close,  and  then  asked  the  clerk  for  the  name  of  the  buyer. 
It  was  Holloway,  the  art  dealer,  near  Covent  Garden,  whom  he  slightly 
knew.  Going  at  once  to  the  shop  he  waited  till  young  Holloway  came 
in,  with  his  purchases  under  his  arm,  and  without  attempt  at  preface, 


188  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

he  said : — "  You  bought  to-day,  Mr.  Holloway,  a  number  that  I  wanted. 
Do  you  mind  letting  me  have  it  ?  "  Holloway  took  out  the  parcel,  looked 
over  the  drawings,  and  said  that  he  had  bought  the  number  for  the 
sake  of  the  Rembrandt,  which  he  thought  possibly  genuine ;  taking  that 
out,  Adams  might  have  the  rest  for  the  price  he  paid  for  the  lot, — 
twelve  shillings. 

Thus,  down  to  that  moment,  every  expert  in  London  had  probably 
seen  these  drawings.  Two  of  them, — only  two, — had  thought  them  worth 
buying  at  any  price,  and  of  these  two,  Palgrave  chose  the  Rafael, 
Holloway  the  one  marked  as  Rembrandt.  Adams,  the  purchaser  of  the 
Rafael,  knew  nothing  whatever  on  the  subject,  but  thought  he  might  credit 
himself  with  education  to  the  value  of  twelve  shillings,  and  call  the 
drawing  nothing.  Such  items  of  education  commonly  came  higher. 

He  took  the  drawing  to  Palgrave.  It  was  closely  pasted  to  an  old, 
rather  thin,  card-board  mount,  and,  on  holding  it  up  to  the  window, 
one  could  see  lines  on  the  reverse.  "Take  it  down  to  Reed  at  the  British 
Museum,"  said  Palgrave ;  "  he  is  Curator  of  the  drawirfgs,  and,  if  you  ask 
him,  he  will  have  it  taken  off  the  mount."  Adams  amused  himself  for  a  day 
or  two  by  searching  Rafael's  works  for  the  figure,  which  he  found  at 
last  in  the  Parnasso,  the  figure  of  Horace,  of  which,  as  it  happened — 
though  Adams  did  not  know  it  —  the  British  Museum  owned  a  much 
finer  drawing.  At  last  he  took  the  dirty,  little,  unfinished  red-chalk 
sketch  to  Reed  whom  he  found  in  the  Curator's  room,  with  some  of 
the  finest  Rafael  drawings  in  existence,  hanging  on  the  walls.  "  Yes !  " 
said  Mr.  Reed ;  "  I  noticed  this  at  the  sale ;  but  it's  not  Rafael ! " 
Adams  feeling  himself  incompetent  to  discuss  this  subject,  reported  the 
result  to  Palgrave,  who  said  that  Reed  knew  nothing  about  it.  Also  this 
point  lay  beyond  Adams's  competence ;  but  he  noted  that  Reed  was  in  the 
employ  of  the  British  Museum  as  Curator  of  the  best — or  nearly  the 
best — collection  in  the  world,  especially  of  Rafaels,  and  that  he  bought 
for  the  Museum.  As  expert  he  had  rejected  both  the  Rafael  and  the 
Rembrandt  at  first-sight,  and  after  his  attention  was  recalled  to  the  Rafael 
for  a  further  opinion  he  rejected  it  again. 

A  week  later,  Adams  returned  for  the  drawing,  which  Mr.  Reed 
took  out  of  his  drawer  and  gave  him,  saying  with  what  seemed  a  little 
doubt  or  hesitation : — "  I  should  tell  you  that  the  paper  shows  a  water- 


DILETTANTISM  189 

mark,  which  I  find  the  same  as  that  of  paper  used  by  Marc  Antonio." 
A  little  taken  aback  by  this  method  of  studying  art,  a  method  which  even 
a  poor  and  ignorant  American  might  use  as  well  as  Rafael  himself, 
Adams  asked  stupidly: — "Then  you  think  it  genuine?"  "Possibly!" 
replied  Keed ;  "but  much  overdrawn." 

Here  was  expert-opinion  after  a  second  revise,  with  help  of  water 
marks  !  In  Adams's  opinion  it  was  alone  worth  another  twelve  shillings 
as  education  ;  but  this  was  not  all.  Reed  continued  : — "  The  lines  on  the 
back  seem  to  be  writing,  which  I  cannot  read,  but  if  you  will  take  it 
down  to  the  manuscript  room,  they  will  read  it  for  you." 

Adams  took  the  sheet  down  to  the  keeper  of  the  manuscripts  and 
begged  him  to  read  the  lines.  The  keeper,  after  a  few  minutes'  study, 
very  obligingly  said  he  could  not :  —  "It  is  scratched  with  an  artist's 
crayon,  very  rapidly,  with  many  unusual  abbreviations  and  old  forms. 
If  anyone  in  Europe  can  read  it,  it  is  the  old  man  at  the  table  yonder, 
Libri!  Take  it  to  him  !" 

This  expert  broke  down  on  the  alphabet !  he  could  not  even  judge 
a  manuscript ;  but  Adams  had  no  right  to  complain,  for  he  had  nothing 
to  pay,  not  even  twelve  shillings,  though  he  thought  these  experts  worth 
more,  at  least  for  his  education.  Accordingly  he  carried  his  paper  to 
Libri,  a  total  stranger  to  him,  and  asked  the  old  man,  as  deferentially  as 
possible,  to  tell  him  whether  the  lines  had  any  meaning.  Had  Adams 
not  been  an  ignorant  person  he  would  have  known  all  about  Libri,  but 
his  ignorance  was  vast,  and  perhaps  was  for  the  best.  Libri  looked 
at  the  paper,  and  then  looked  again,  and  at  last  bade  him  sit  down  and 
wait.  Half  an  hour  passed  before  he  called  Adams  back  and  showed  him 
these  lines : — 

'  Or   questo   credo   ben   che   una   elleria 

Te   oflende   tanto   che   te   offese   il   core. 

Perche   sei   grande  nol   sei   in   tua  volia  ; 

Tu   vedi  e   gia   non   credi   il   tuo   valore  ; 

Passate   gia   son   tutte   gelosie  ; 

Tu   sei   di   sasso  ;    non   hai   piu   dolore.' 

As  far  as  Adams  could  afterwards  recall  it,  this  was  Libri's  reading, 
but  he  added  that  the  abbreviations  were  many  and  unusual ;  that  the 
writing  was  very  ancient ;  and  that  the  word  he  read  as  "  elleria "  in  the 
first  line  was  not  Italian  at  all. 


190  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

By  this  time,  one  had  got  too  far  beyond  one's  depth  to  ask  ques 
tions.  If  Libri  could  not  read  Italian,  very  clearly  Adams  had  better 
not  offer  to  help  him.  He  took  the  drawing,  thanked  everybody,  and 
having  exhausted  the  experts  of  the  British  Museum,  took  a  cab  to 
Woolner's  studio,  where  he  showed  the  figure  and  repeated  Reed's  opinion. 
Woolner  snorted  : — "  Reed's  a  fool !  "  he  said ;  "  he  knows  nothing  about 
it ;  there  may  be  a  rotten  line  or  two,  but  the  drawing's  all  right." 

For  forty  years  Adams  kept  this  drawing  on  his  mantelpiece,  partly 
for  its  own  interest,  but  largely  for  curiosity  to  see  whether  any  critic 
or  artist  would  ever  stop  to  look  at  it.  None  ever  did,  unless  he 
knew  the  story.  Adams  himself  never  wanted  to  know  more  about  it. 
He  refused  to  seek  further  light.  He  never  cared  to  learn  whether  the 
drawing  was  Rafael's,  or  whether  the  verses  were  Rafael's,  or  whether 
even  the  water-mark  was  Rafael's.  The  experts — some  scores  of  them 
including  the  British  Museum, — had  affirmed  that  the  drawing  was  worth 
a  certain  moiety  of  twelve  shillings.  On  that  point,  also,  Adams  could 
offer  no  opinion,  but  he  was  clear  that  his  education  had  profited  by 
it  to  that  extent, — his  amusement  even  more. 

Art  was  a  superb  field  for  education,  but  at  every  turn  he  met  the 
same  old  figure,  like  a  battered  and  illegible  signpost  that  ought  to  direct 
him  to  the  next  station  but  never  did.  There  was  no  next  station.  All  the 
art  of  a  thousand — or  ten  thousand — years  had  brought  England  to  stuff 
which  Palgrave  and  Woolner  brayed  in  their  mortars ;  derided,  tore  in 
tatters,  growled  at,  and  howled  at,  and  treated  in  terms  beyond  literary 
usage.  Whistler  had  not  yet  made  his  appearance  in  London,  but  the 
others  did  quite  as  well.  What  result  could  a  student  reach  from  it  ? 
Once,  on  returning  to  London,  dining  with  Stopford  Brooke,  some  one 
asked  Adams  what  impression  the  Royal  Academy  Exhibition  made  on 
him.  With  a  little  hesitation,  he  suggested  that  it  was  rather  a  chaos, 
which  he  meant  for  civility,  but  Stopford  Brooke  abruptly  met  it  by 
asking  whether  chaos  were  not  better  than  death.  Truly  the  question  was 
worth  discussion.  For  his  own  part,  Adams  inclined  to  think  that  neither 
chaos  nor  death  was  an  object  to  him  as  a  searcher  of  knowledge, — neither 
would  have  vogue  in  America, — neither  would  help  him  to  a  career. 
Both  of  them  led  him  away  from  his  objects,  into  an  English  dilettante 
museum  of  scraps,  with  nothing  but  a  wall-paper  to  unite  them  in  any  rela- 


DILETTANTISM  191 

tion  of  sequence.  Possibly  English  taste  was  one  degree  more  fatal  than 
English  scholarship,  but  even  this  question  was  open  to  argument. 
Adams  went  to  the  sales  and  bought  what  he  was  told  to  buy ;  now  a 
classical  drawing  by  Rafael  or  Rubens ;  now  a  water-color  by  Girtin  or 
Cotman,  if  possible  unfinished  because  it  was  more  likely  to  be  a  sketch 
from  nature ;  and  he  bought  them  not  because  they  went  together, — on  the 
contrary  they  made  rather  awkward  spots  on  the  wall  as  they  did  on 
the  mind, — but  because  he  could  afford  to  buy  those,  and  not  others. 
Ten  pounds  did  not  go  far  to  buy  a  Michael  Angelo,  but  was  a  great 
deal  of  money  to  a  private  secretary.  The  effect  was  spotty,  fragmentary, 
feeble ;  and  the  more  so  because  the  British  mind  was  constructed  in  that 
way, — boasted  of  it,  and  held  it  to  be  true  philosophy  as  well  as  sound 
method. 

What  was  worse  no  one  had  a  right  to  denounce  the  English 
as  wrong.  Artistically  their  mind  was  scrappy,  and  everyone  knew  it, 
but  perhaps  thought  itself,  history,  and  nature,  were  scrappy,  and  ought 
to  be  studied  so.  Turning  from  British  art  to  British  literature,  one  met 
the  same  dangers.  The  historical  school  was  a  play-ground  of  traps  and 
pit-falls.  Fatally  one  fell  into  the  sink  of  history — antiquarianism.  For 
one  who  nourished  a  natural  weakness  for  what  was  called  history, 
the  whole  of  British  literature  in  the  nineteenth  century  was  antiqua 
rianism  or  anecdotage,  for  no  one  except  Buckle  had  tried  to  link  it 
with  ideas,  and  commonly  Buckle  was  regarded  as  having  failed.  Macaulay 
was  the  English  historian.  Adams  had  the  greatest  admiration  for 
Macaulay,  but  he  felt  that  anyone  who  should  even  distantly  imitate 
Macaulay  would  perish  in  self-contempt.  One  might  as  well  imitate 
Shakespeare.  Yet  evidently  something  was  wrong  here,  for  the  poet  and 
the  historian  ought  to  have  different  methods,  and  Macaulay's  method 
ought  to  be  imitable  if  it  were  sound ;  yet  the  method  was  more  doubt 
ful  than  the  style.  He  was  a  dramatist ;  a  painter ;  a  poet,  like  Carlyle. 
This  was  the  English  mind,  method,  genius,  or  whatever  one  might  call 
it ;  but  one  never  could  quite  admit  that  the  method  which  ended  in 
Froude  and  Kinglake  could  be  sound  for  America  where  passion  and 
poetry  were  eccentricities.  Both  Froude  and  Kinglake,  when  one  met 
them  at  dinner,  were  very  agreeable,  very  intelligent ;  and  perhaps  the 
English  method  was  right,  and  art  fragmentary  by  essence.  History, 


192  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

like  everything  else,  might  be  a  field  of  scraps,  like  the  refuse  about  a 
Staffordshire  iron-furnace.  One  felt  a  little  natural  reluctance  to  decline 
and  fall  like  Silas  Wegg  on  the  golden  dust-heap  of  British  refuse ;  but 
if  one  must,  one  could  at  least  expect  a  Degree  from  Oxford  and  the 
respect  of  the  Athenaeum  Club. 

While  drifting,  after  the  war  ended,  many  old  American  friends 
came  abroad  for  a  holiday,  and  among  the  rest,  Dr.  Palfrey,  busy  with 
his  History  of  New  England.  Of  all  the  relics  of  childhood,  Dr.  Palfrey 
was  the  most  sympathetic,  and  perhaps  the  more  so  because  he,  too,  had 
wandered  into  the  pleasant  meadows  of  antiquarianism,  and  had  forgotten 
the  world  in  his  pursuit  of  the  New  England  Puritan.  Although  America 
seemed  becoming  more  and  more  indifferent  to  the  Puritan  except  as  a 
slightly  rococo  ornament,  he  was  only  the  more  amusing  as  a  study  for  the 
Monkbarns  of  Boston  Bay,  and  Dr.  Palfrey  took  him  seriously,  as  his 
clerical  education  required.  His  work  was  rather  an  Apologia  in  the 
Greek  sense ;  a  justification  of  the  ways  of  God  to  Man,  or,  what  was 
much  the  same  thing,  of  Puritans  to  other  men ;  and  the  task  of  justifi 
cation  was  onerous  enough  to  require  the  occasional  relief  of  a  contrast 
or  scape-goat.  When  Dr.  Palfrey  happened  on  the  picturesque  but  un- 
puritanic  figure  of  Captain  John  Smith,  he  felt  no  call  to  beautify 
Smith's  picture  or  to  defend  his  moral  character ;  he  became  impartial 
and  penetrating.  The  famous  story  of  Pocahontas  roused  his  latent  New 
England  scepticism.  He  suggested  to  Adams,  who  wanted  to  make  a 
position  for  himself,  that  an  article  in  the  North  American  Review  on 
Captain  John  Smith's  relations  with  Pocahontas  would  attract  as  much 
attention,  and  probably  break  as  much  glass,  as  any  other  stone  that 
could  be  thrown  by  a  beginner.  Adams  could  suggest  nothing  better. 
The  task  seemed  likely  to  be  amusing.  So  he  planted  himself  in  the 
British  Museum  and  patiently  worked  over  all  the  material  he  could 
find,  until,  at  last,  after  three  or  four  months  of  labor,  he  got  it 
in  shape  and  sent  it  to  Charles  Norton,  who  was  then  editing  the  North 
American.  Mr.  Norton  very  civilly  and  even  kindly  accepted  it.  The 
article  appeared  in  January,  1867. 

Surely,  here  was  something  to  ponder  over,  as  a  step  in  education ; 
something  that  tended  to  stagger  a  sceptic !  In  spite  of  personal  wishes, 
intentions  and  prejudices;  in  spite  of  civil  wars  and  diplomatic  education; 


DILETTANTISM  193 

in  spite  of  determination  to  be  actual,  daily  and  practical,  Henry  Adams 
found  himself,  at  twenty-eight,  still  in  English  society,  dragged  on  one 
side  into  English  dilettantism,  which  of  all  dilettantism  he  held  the  most 
futile ;  and,  on  the  other,  into  American  antiquarianism,  which  of  all 
antiquarianism  he  held  the  most  foolish.  This  was  the  result  of  five 
years  in  London.  Even  then  he  knew  it  to  be  a  false  start.  He  had 
wholly  lost  his  way.  If  he  were  ever  to  amount  to  anything,  he  must 
begin  a  new  education,  in  a  new  place,  with  a  new  purpose. 


13 


CHAPTEK    XV 

1867  - 1868 

Politics,  diplomacy,  law,  art  and  history  had  opened  no  outlet  for 
future  energy  or  effort,  but  a  man  must  do  something,  even  in  Portland 
Place,  when  winter  is  dark  and  winter  evenings  are  exceedingly  long.  At 
that  moment  Darwin  was  convulsing  society.  The  geological  champion 
of  Darwin  was  Sir  Charles  Lyell,  and  the  Lyells  were  intimate  at  the 
Legation.  Sir  Charles  constantly  said  of  Darwin,  what  Palgrave  said  of 
Tennyson,  that  the  first  time  he  came  to  town,  Adams  should  be  asked 
to  meet  him,  but  neither  of  them  ever  came  to  town,  or  ever  cared  to 
meet  a  young  American,  and  one  could  not  go  to  them  because  they  were 
known  to  dislike  intrusion.  The  only  Americans  who  were  not  allowed 
to  intrude  were  the  half-dozen  in  the  Legation.  Adams  was  content  to 
read  Darwin,  especially  his  Origin  of  Species  and  his  Voyage  of  the 
Beagle.  He  was  a  Darwinist  before  the  letter;  a  predestined  follower  of 
the  tide ;  but  he  was  hardly  trained  to  follow  Darwin's  evidences. 
Fragmentary  the  British  mind  might  be,  but  in  those  days  it  was  doing 
a  great  deal  of  work  in  a  very  un-English  way,  building  up  so  many  and 
such  vast  theories  on  such  narrow  foundations  as  to  shock  the  conserva 
tive,  and  delight  the  frivolous.  The  atomic  theory ;  the  correlation  and 
conservation  of  energy ;  the  mechanical  theory  of  the  universe ;  the 
kinetic  theory  of  gases,  and  Darwin's  law  of  Natural  Selection,  were 
examples  of  what  a  young  man  had  to  take  on  trust.  Neither  he  nor 
anyone  else  knew  enough  to  verify  them  ;  in-  his  ignorance  of  mathematics, 
he  was  particularly  helpless;  but  this  never  stood  in  his  way.  The 
ideas  were  new  and  seemed  to  lead  somewhere, — to  some  great  general 
isation  which  would  finish  one's  clamor  to  be  educated.  That  a  beginner 
194 


DARWINISM  195 

should  understand  them  all,  or  believe  them  all,  no  one  could  expect,  still 
less  exact.  Henry  Adams  was  Darwinist  because  it  was  easier  than  not, 
for  his  ignorance  exceeded  belief,  and  one  must  know  something  in  order 
to  contradict  even  such  triflers  as  Tyndall  and  Huxley. 

By  rights,  he  should  have  been  also  a  Marxist,  but  some  narrow  trait  of 
the  New  England  nature  seemed  to  blight  socialism,  and  he  tried  in  vain 
to  make  himself  a  convert.  He  did  the  next  best  thing ;  he  became  a 
Comteist,  within  the  limits  of  evolution.  He  was  ready  to  become  anything 
but  quiet.  As  though  the  world  had  not  been  enough  upset  in  his  time, 
he  was  eager  to  see  it  upset  more.  He  had  his  wish,  but  he  lost  his 
hold  on  the  results  by  trying  to  understand  them. 

He  never  tried  to  understand  Darwin ;  but  he  still  fancied  he  might 
get  the  best  part  of  Darwinism  from  the  easier  study  of  geology  ;  a  science 
which  suited  idle  minds  as  well  as  though  it  were  history.  Every 
curate  in  England  dabbled  in  geology  and  hunted  for  vestiges  of  Creation. 
Darwin  hunted  only  for  vestiges  of  Natural  Selection,  and  Adams  followed 
him,  although  he  cared  nothing  about  Selection,  unless  perhaps  for  the 
indirect  amusement  of  upsetting  curates.  He  felt,  like  nine  men  in  ten, 
an  instinctive  belief  in  Evolution,  but  he  felt  no  more  concern  in  Natural 
than  in  unnatural  Selection,  though  he  seized  with  greediness  the  new 
volume  on  the  Antiquity  of  Man  which  Sir  Charles  Lyell  published  in  1863 
in  order  to  support  Darwin  by  wrecking  the  garden  of  Eden.  Sir  Charles 
next  brought  out,  in  1866,  a  new  edition  of  his  "  Principles,"  then  the 
highest  text-book  of  Geology ;  but  here  the  Darwinian  doctrine  grew  in 
stature.  Natural  Selection  led  back  to  Natural  Evolution,  and  at  last  to 
Natural  Uniformity.  This  was  a  vast  stride.  Unbroken  Evolution  under 
uniform  conditions  pleased  everyone  —  except  curates  and  bishops; — it 
was  the  very  best  substitute  for  religion ;  a  safe,  conservative,  practical, 
thoroughly  Common-law  deity.  Such  a  working  system  for  the  universe 
suited  a  young  man  who  had  just  helped  to  waste  five  or  ten  thousand 
million  dollars  and  a  million  lives,  more  or  less,  to  enforce  unity  and 
uniformity  on  people  who  objected  to  it ;  the  idea  was  only  too  seductive 
in  its  perfection ;  it  had  the  charm  of  art.  Unity  and  Uniformity  were 
the  whole  motive  of  philosophy,  and  if  Darwin,  like  a  true  Englishman, 
preferred  to  back  into  it, — to  reach  God  a  posteriori, — rather  than  start 
from  it,  like  Spinoza,  the  difference  of  method  taught  only  the  moral 


196  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENKY  ADAMS 

that  the  best  way  of  reaching   unity  was  to  unite.      Any  road  was  good 
that  arrived. 

Life  depended  on  it.  One  had  been,  from  the  first,  dragged  hither 
and  thither  like  a  French  poodle  in  a  string,  following  always  the 
strongest  pull,  between  one  form  of  unity  or  centralisation  and  another. 
The  proof  that  one  had  acted  wisely  because  of  obeying  the  primordial 
habit  of  nature  nattered  one's  self-esteem.  Steady,  uniform,  unbroken 
evolution  from  lower  to  higher  seemed  easy.  So,  one  day  when  Sir 
Charles  came  to  the  Legation  to  inquire  about  getting  his  "  Principles " 
properly  noticed  in  America,  young  Adams  found  nothing  simpler  than 
to  suggest  that  he  could  do  it  himself  if  Sir  Charles  would  tell  him 
what  to  say.  Youth  risks  such  encounters  with  the  universe  before  one 
succumbs  to  it,  yet  even  he  was  surprised  at  Sir  Charles's  ready  assent, 
and  still  more  so  at  finding  himself,  after  half  an  hour's  conversation, 
sitting  down  to  clear  the  minds  of  American  geologists  about  the  principles 
of  their  profession.  This  was  getting  on  fast;  Arthur  Pendennis  had 
never  gone  so  far. 

The  geologists  were  a  hardy  class,  not  likely  to  be  much  hurt  by 
Adams's  learning,  nor  did  he  throw  away  much  concern  on  their  account. 
He  undertook  the  task  chiefly  to  educate,  not  them,  but  himself,  and  if 
Sir  Isaac  Newton  had,  like  Sir  Charles  Lyell,  asked  him  to  explain  for 
Americans  his  last  edition  of  the  Principia,  Adams  would  have  jumped 
at  the  chance.  Unfortunately  the  mere  reading  such  works  for  amusement 
is  quite  a  different  matter  from  studying  them  for  criticism.  Ignorance 
must  always  begin  at  the  beginning.  Adams  must  inevitably  have  begun 
by  asking  Sir  Isaac  for  an  intelligible  reason  why  the  apple  fell  to  the 
ground.  He  did  not  know  enough  to  be  satisfied  with  the  fact.  The  Law 
of  Gravitation  was  so-and-so,  but  what  was  Gravitation?  and  he  would 
have  been  thrown  quite  off  his  base  if  Sir  Isaac  had  answered  that  he  did 
not  know. 

At  the  very  outset  Adams  struck  on  Sir  Charles's  Glacial  Theory 
or  theories.  He  was  ignorant  enough  to  think  that  the  glacial  epoch 
looked  like  a  chasm  between  him  and  a  uniformitarian  world.  If  the 
glacial  period  were  uniformity,  what  was  catastrophe?  To  him  the  two 
or  three  labored  guesses  that  Sir  Charles  suggested  or  borrowed  to  explain 
glaciation  were  proof  of  nothing,  and  were  quite  unsolid  as  support  for 


DARWINISM  197 

so  immense  a  superstructure  as  geological  uniformity.  If  one  were  at 
liberty  to  be  as  lax  in  science  as  in  theology,  and  to  assume  unity  from 
the  start,  one  might  better  say  so,  as  the  Church  did,  and  not  invite 
attack  by  appearing  weak  in  evidence.  Naturally  a  young  man,  altogether 
ignorant,  could  not  say  this  to  Sir  Charles  Lyell  or  Sir  Isaac  Newton : 
but  he  was  forced  to  state  Sir  Charles's  views,  which  he  thought  weak  as 
hypotheses  and  worthless  as  proofs.  Sir  Charles  himself  seemed  shy 
of  them.  Adams  hinted  his  heresies  in  vain.  At  last  he  resorted  to  what 
he  thought  the  bold  experiment  of  inserting  a  sentence  in  the  text, 
intended  to  provoke  correction.  "  The  introduction  [by  Louis  Agassiz] 
of  this  new  geological  agent  seemed  at  first  sight  inconsistent  with  Sir 
Charles's  argument,  obliging  him  to  allow  that  causes  had  in  fact  existed 
on  the  earth  capable  of  producing  more  violent  geological  changes  than 
would  be  possible  in  our  own  day."  The  hint  produced  no  effect.  Sir 
Charles  said  not  a  word ;  he  let  the  paragraph  stand ;  and  Adams  never 
knew  whether  the  great  Uniformitarian  was  strict  or  lax  in  his  uniform- 
itarian  creed  ;  but  he  doubted. 

Objections  fatal  to  one  mind  are  futile  to  another,  and  as  far  as 
concerned  the  Article,  the  matter  ended  there,  although  the  glacial  epoch 
remained  a  misty  region  in  the  young  man's  Darwinism.  Had  it  been 
the  only  one,  he  would  not  have  fretted  about  it ;  but  uniformity  often 
worked  queerly  and  sometimes  did  not  work  as  Natural  Selection  at  all. 
Finding  himself  at  a  loss  for  some  single  figure  to  illustrate  the  law  of 
Natural  Selection,  Adams  asked  Sir  Charles  for  the  simplest  case  of 
uniformity  on  record.  Much  to  his  surprise  Sir  Charles  told  him  that 
certain  forms,  like  Terebratula,  appeared  to  be  identical  from  the  beginning 
to  the  end  of  geological  time.  Since  this  was  altogether  too  much  uni 
formity  and  much  too  little  selection,  Adams  gave  up  the  attempt  to 
begin  at  the  beginning,  and  tried  starting  at  the  end,  —  himself.  Taking 
for  granted  that  the  vertebrates  would  serve  his  purpose,  he  asked  Sir 
Charles  to  introduce  him  to  the  first  vertebrate.  Infinitely  to  his  be 
wilderment,  Sir  Charles  informed  him  that  the  first  vertebrate  was  a 
very  respectable  fish,  among  the  earliest  of  all  fossils,  which  had  lived, 
and  whose  bones  were  still  reposing,  under  Adams's  own  favorite  Abbey 
on  Wenlock  Edge. 

By  this  time,  in  1867,  Adams  had  learned  to  know  Shropshire  fami- 


198  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

liarly,  and  it  was  the  part  of  his  diplomatic  education  which  he  loved 
best.  Like  Catherine  Olney  in  Northanger  Abbey,  he  yearned  for 
nothing  so  keenly  as  to  feel  at  home  in  a  thirteenth-century  Abbey, 
unless  it  were  to  haunt  a  fifteenth-century  Prior's  House,  and  both  these 
joys  were  his  at  Wenlock.  With  companions  or  without,  he  never  tired 
of  it.  Whether  he  rode  about  the  Wrekin,  or  visited  all  the  historical 
haunts  from  Ludlow  Castle  and  Stokesay  to  Boscobel  and  Uriconium ; 
or  followed  the  Roman  road  or  scratched  in  the  Abbey  ruins,  all  was 
amusing  and  carried  a  flavor  of  its  own  like  that  of  the  .Roman  campagna ; 
but  perhaps  he  liked  best  to  ramble  over  the  Edge  on  a  summer  afternoon 
and  look  across  the  Marches  to  the  mountains  of  Wales.  The  peculiar 
flavor  of  the  scenery  had  something  to  do  with  absence  of  evolution ;  it 
was  better  marked  in  Egypt ;  it  was  felt  wherever  time-sequences  became 
interchangeable.  One's  instinct  abhors  time.  As  one  lay  on  the  slope 
of  the  Edge,  looking  sleepily  through  the  summer  haze  towards  Shrews 
bury  or  Cader  Idris  or  Caer  Caradoc  or  Uriconium,  nothing  suggested 
sequence.  The  Roman  road  was  twin  to  the  railroad ;  Uriconium,  was 
well  worth  Shrewsbury ;  Wenlock  and  Buildwas  were  far  superior  to 
Bridgenorth.  The  shepherds  of  Caractacus  or  OfFa,  or  the  monks  of 
Buildwas,  had  they  approched  where  he  lay  in  the  grass,  would  have 
taken  him  only  for  another  and  tamer  variety  of  Welsh  thief.  They  would 
have  seen  little  to  surprise  them  in  the  modern  landscape  unless  it  were 
the  steam  of  a  distant  railway.  One  might  mix  up  the  terms  of  time  as 
one  liked,  or  stuff  the  present  anywhere  into  the  past,  measuring  time  by 
FalstafTs  Shrewsbury  clock,  without  violent  sense  of  wrong,  as  one  could 
do  it  on  the  Pacific  Ocean ;  but  the  triumph  of  all  was  to  look  south  along 
the  Edge  to  the  abode  of  one's  earliest  ancestor  and  nearest  relative, 
the  ganoid  fish,  whose  name  according  to  Professor  Huxley  was  Pteraspis, 
a  cousin  of  the  sturgeon,  and  whose  kingdom,  according  to  Sir  Roderick 
Murchison,  was  called  Siluria.  Life  began  and  ended  there.  Behind 
that  horizon  lay  only  the  Cambrian,  without  vertebrates  or  any  other 
organism  except  a  few  shell-fish.  On  the  further  verge  of  the  Cambrian 
rose  the  crystalline  rocks  from  which  every  trace  of  organic  existence 
had  been  erased. 

That  here,  on  the  Wenlock  Edge  of  time,  a  young  American,  seeking 
only  frivolous  amusement,  should  find  a  legitimate  parentage  as  modern 


DARWINISM  199 

as  though  just  caught  in  the  Severn  below,  astonished  him  as  much  as 
though  he  had  found  Darwin  himself.  In  the  scale  of  evolution,  one 
vertebrate  was  as  good  as  another.  For  anything  he,  or  anyone  else,  knew, 
nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine  parts  of  evolution  out  of  a  thousand  lay 
behind  or  below  the  Pteraspis.  To  an  American  in  search  of  a  father,  it 
mattered  nothing  whether  the  father  breathed  through  lungs,  or  walked 
on  fins,  or  on  feet.  Evolution  of  mind  was  altogether  another  matter 
and  belonged  to  another  science,  but  whether  one  traced  descent  from  the 
shark  or  the  wolf  was  immaterial  even  in  morals.  This  matter  had  been 
discussed  for  ages  without  scientific  result.  La  Fontaine  and  other  fabu 
lists  maintained  that  the  wolf,  even  in  morals,  stood  higher  than  man ; 
and  in  view  of  the  late  civil  war,  Adams  had  doubts  of  his  own  on  the 
facts  of  moral  evolution:  — 

'  Tout  bien  consid^re,  je  te  soutiens  en  somme, 

Que  sceI6rat  pour  sc&erat, 
II  vaut  mieux  etre  un  loup  qu'un  homme.' 

It  might  well  be !  at  all  events  it  did  not  enter  into  the  problem  of 
Pteraspis,  for  it  was  quite  certain  that  no  evolution  worth  treating  as  proof 
of  the  principle,  had  occurred  back  to  the  time  of  Pteraspis,  and  that 
before  Pteraspis  was  eternal  void.  No  trace  of  any  vertebrate  had  been 
found  there ;  only  starfish,  shell-fish,  polyps,  or  trilobites  whose  kindly 
descendents  he  had  often  bathed  with,  as  a  child,  on  the  shores  of 
Quincy  Bay. 

That  Pteraspis  and  shark  were  his  cousins,  great-uncles  or  grand 
fathers,  in  no  way  troubled  him,  but  that  either  or  both  of  them  should 
be  older  than  evolution  itself  seemed  to  him  perplexing ;  nor  could  he 
at  all  simplify  the  problem  by  taking  the  sudden  back-somersault  into 
Quincy  Bay  in  search  of  the  fascinating  creature  he  had  called  a  horse 
shoe,  whose  huge  dome  of  shell  and  sharp  spur  of  tail  had  so  alarmed 
him  as  a  child.  In  Siluria,  he  understood,  Sir  Roderick  Murchison 
called  the  horse-shoe  a  Limulus,  which  helped  nothing.  Neither  in  the 
Limulus  nor  in  the  Terebratula,  nor  in  the  Cestracion  Philippi,  any 
more  than  in  the  Pteraspis  could  one  conceive  an  ancestor,  but,  if  one 
must,  the  choice  mattered  little.  Cousinship  had  limits  but  no  one 
knew  enough  to  fix  them.  When  the  vertebrate  vanished  in  Siluria, 


200  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

it  disappeared  instantly  and  forever.  Neither  vertebra  nor  scale  nor  print 
reappeared,  nor  any  trace  of  ascent  or  descent  to  a  lower  type.  The 
vertebrate  began  in  the  Ludlow  shale,  as  complete  as  Adams  himself, — 
in  some  respects  more  so, — at  the  top  of  the  column  of  organic  evolu 
tion  :  and  geology  offered  no  sort  of  proof  that  he  had  ever  been  anything 
else.  Ponder  over  it  as  he  might,  Adams  could  see  nothing  in  the  theory 
of  Sir  Charles  but  pure  inference,  precisely  like  the  inference  of  Paley, 
that,  if  one  found  a  watch,  one  inferred  a  maker.  He  could  detect 
no  more  evolution  in  life  since  the  Pteraspis  than  he  could  detect  it 
in  architecture  since  the  Abbey.  All  he  could  prove  was  change.  Coal- 
power  alone  asserted  evolution, — of  power, — and  only  by  violence  could  be 
forced  to  assert  selection  of  type. 

All  this  seemed  trivial  to  the  true  Darwinian,  and  to  Sir  Charles 
it  was  mere  defect  in  the  geological  record.  Sir  Charles  labored  only 
to  heap  up  the  evidences  of  evolution ;  to  cumulate  them  till  the  mass 
became  irresistible.  With  that  purpose,  Adams  gladly  studied  and  tried 
to  help  Sir  Charles,  but,  behind  the  lesson  of  the  day,  he  was  conscious 
that,  in  geology  as  in  theology,  he  could  prove  only  Evolution  that  did 
not  evolve ;  Uniformity  that  was  not  uniform ;  and  Selection  that  did 
not  select.  To  other  Darwinians — except  Darwin — natural  Selection 
seemed  a  dogma  to  be  put  in  the  place  of  the  Athanasian  creed ;  it 
was  a  form  of  religious  hope;  a  promise  of  ultimate  perfection.  Adams 
wished  no  better ;  he  warmly  sympathised  in  the  object ;  but  when  he 
came  to  ask  himself  what  he  truly  thought,  he  felt  that  he  had  no 
Faith ;  that  whenever  the  next  new  hobby  should  be  brought  out,  he 
should  surely  drop  off  from  Darwinism  like  a  monkey  from  a  perch  ; 
that  the  idea  of  one  Form,  Law,  Order  or  Sequence,  had  no  more  value 
for  him  than  the  idea  of  none ;  that  what  he  valued  most  was  Motion, 
and  that  what  attracted  his  mind  was  Change. 

Psychology  was  to  him  a  new  study,  and  a  dark  corner  of  educa 
tion.  As  he  lay  on  Wenlock  Edge,  with  the  sheep  nibbling  the  grass 
close  about  him  as  they  or  their  betters  had  nibbled  the  grass, — or 
whatever  there  was  to  nibble, — in  the  Silurian  kingdom  of  Pteraspis,  he 
seemed  to  have  fallen  on  an  evolution  far  more  wonderful  than  that 
of  fishes.  He  did  not  like  it ;  he  could  not  account  for  it ;  and  he 
determined  to  stop  it.  Never  since  the  days  of  his  Limulus  ancestry,  had 


DARWINISM  201 

any  of  his  ascendents  thought  thus.  Their  modes  of  thought  might  be 
many,  but  their  thought  was  one.  Out  of  his  millions  of  millions  of 
ancestors,  back  to  the  Cambrian  mollusks,  every  one  had  probably  lived 
and  died  in  the  illusion  of  Truths  which  did  not  amuse  him,  and 
which  had  never  changed.  Henry  Adams  was  the  first  in  an  infinite 
series  to  discover  and  admit  to  himself  that  he  really  did  not  care 
whether  truth  was,  or  was  not,  true.  He  did  not  even  care  that  it  should 
he  proved  true,  unless  the  process  were  new  and  amusing.  He  was  a 
Darwinian  for  fun. 

From  the  beginning  of  history,  this  attitude  had  been  branded  as 
criminal, — worse  than  crime, — sacrilege  !  Society  punished  it  ferociously 
and  justly,  in  self-defense.  Mr.  Adams,  the  father,  looked  on  it  as  moral 
weakness ;  it  annoyed  him ;  but  it  did  not  annoy  him  nearly  so  much 
as  it  annoyed  his  son,  who  had  no  need  to  learn  from  Hamlet  the  fatal 
effect  of  the  pale  cast  of  thought  on  enterprises  great  or  small.  He  had 
no  notion  of  letting  the  currents  of  his  action  be  turned  awry  by  this 
form  of  conscience.  To  him,  the  current  of  his  time  was  to  be  his 
current,  lead  where  it  might.  He  put  psychology  under  lock  and  key  ; 
he  insisted  on  maintaining  his  absolute  standards ;  on  aiming  at  ultimate 
Unity.  The  mania  for  handling  all  the  sides  of  every  question,  looking 
into  every  window,  and  opening  every  door,  was,  as  Bluebeard  judiciously 
pointed  out  to  his  wives,  fatal  to  their  practical  usefulness  in  society. 
One  could  not  stop  to  chase  doubts  as  though  they  were  rabbits.  One 
had  no  time  to  paint  and  putty  the  surface  of  Law,  even  though  it  were 
cracked  and  rotten.  For  the  young  men  whose  lives  were  cast  in  the 
generation  between  1867  and  1900,  Law  should  be  Evolution  from  lower 
to  higher,  aggregation  of  the  atom  in  the  mass,  concentration  of  multi 
plicity  in  unity,  compulsion  of  anarchy  in  order ;  and  he  would  force 
himself  to  follow  wherever  it  led,  though  he  should  sacrifice  five  thousand 
millions  more  in  money,  and  a  million  more  lives. 

As  the  path  ultimately  led,  it  sacrificed  much  more  than  this ;  but 
at  the  time,  he  thought  the  price  he  named  a  high  one,  and  he  could 
not  foresee  that  science  and  society  would  desert  him  in  paying  it.  He, 
at  least,  took  his  education  as  a  Darwinian  in  good  faith.  The  Church 
was  gone,  and  Duty  was  dim,  but  Will  should  take  its  place,  founded 
deeply  in  interest  and  la,w.  This  was  the  result  of  five  or  six  years  in 


202  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

England ;    a   result   so   British   as   to   be    almost    the    equivalent   of    an 
Oxford  degree. 

Quite  serious  about  it,  he  set  to  work  at  once.  While  confusing 
his  ideas  about  geology  to  the  apparent  satisfaction  of  Sir  Charles  who 
left  him  his  field-compass  in  token  of  it,  Adams  turned  resolutely  to 
business,  and  attacked  the  burning  question  of  specie-payments.  His 
principles  assured  him  that  the  honest  way  to  resume  payments  was 
to  restrict  currency.  He  thought  he  might  win  a  name  among  financiers 
and  statesmen  at  home  by  showing  how  this  task  had  been  done  by 
England,  after  the  classical  suspension  of  1797-1821.  Setting  himself 
to  the  study  of  this  perplexed  period,  he  waded  as  well  as  he  could 
through  a  morass  of  volumes,  pamphlets  and  debates,  until  he  learned 
to  his  confusion  that  the  Bank  of  England  itself  and  all  the  best 
British  financial  writers  held  that  restriction  was  a  fatal  mistake,  and 
that  the  best  treatment  of  a  debased  currency  was  to  let  it  alone,  as 
the  Bank  had  in  fact  done.  Time  and  patience  were  the  remedies. 

The  shock  of  this  discovery  to  his  financial  principles  was  serious ; 
much  more  serious  than  the  shock  of  the  Terebratula  and  Pteraspis 
to  his  principles  of  geology.  A  mistake  about  evolution  was  not  fatal; 
a  mistake  about  specie  payments  would  destroy  forever  the  last  hope 
of  employment  in  State  Street.  Six  months  of  patient  labor  would  be 
thrown  away  if  he  did  not  publish,  and  with  it  his  whole  scheme  of 
making  himself  a  position  as  a  practical  man-of-business.  If  he  did 
publish,  how  could  he  tell  virtuous  bankers  in  State  Street  that  moral 
and  absolute  principles  of  abstract  truth,  such  as  theirs,  had  nothing 
to  do  with  the  matter,  and  that  they  had  better  let  it  alone  ?  Geologists, 
naturally  a  humble  and  helpless  class,  might  not  revenge  impertinences 
offered  to  their  science ;  but  capitalists  never  forgot  or  forgave. 

With  labor  and  caution  he  made  one  long  Article  on  British  Finance 
in  1816,  and  another  on  the  Bank  Restriction  of  1797-1821,  and,  doing 
both  up  in  one  package,  he  sent  it  to  the  North  American  for  choice. 
He  knew  that  two  heavy,  technical,  financial  studies  thus  thrown  at  an 
editor's  head,  would  probably  return  to  crush  the  author ;  but  the  audacity 
of  youth  is  more  sympathetic — when  successful — than  his  ignorance.  The 
editor  accepted  both. 

When  the  post  brought   his   letter,   Adams   looked   at   it  as   though 


DARWINISM  203 

he  were  a  debtor  who  had  begged  for  an  extension.  He  read  it  with  as 
much  relief  as  the  debtor,  if  it  had  brought  him  the  loan.  The  letter 
gave  the  new  writer  literary  rank.  Henceforward  he  had  the  freedom 
of  the  press.  These  Articles,  following  those  on  Pocahontas  and  Lyell, 
enrolled  him  on  the  permanent  staff  of  the  North  American  Review. 
Precisely  what  this  rank  was  worth,  no  one  could  say  ;  but,  for  fifty 
years  the  North  American  Review  had  been  the  stage-coach  which  carried 
literary  Bostonians  to  such  distinction  as  they  had  achieved.  Few 
writers  had  ideas  which  warranted  thirty  pages  of  development,  but  for 
such  as  thought  they  had,  the  Review  alone  offered  space.  An  article 
was  a  small  volume  which  required  at  least  three  month's  work,  and  was 
paid,  at  best,  five  dollars  a  page.  Not  many  men  even  in  England  or 
France  could  write  a  good  thirty-page  article,  and  practically  no  one  in 
America  read  them ;  but  a  few  score  of  people,  mostly  in  search  of 
items  to  steal,  ran  over  the  pages  to  extract  an  idea  or  a  fact,  which  was 
a  sort  of  wild  game, — a  blue-fish  or  a  teal, — worth  anywhere  from  fifty 
cents  to  five  dollars.  Newspaper  writers  had  their  eye  on  quarterly 
pickings.  The  circulation  of  the  Review  had  never  exceeded  three  or 
four  hundred  copies,  and  the  Review  had  never  paid  its  reasonable 
expenses.  Yet  it  stood  at  the  head  of  American  literary  periodicals ; 
it  was  a  source  of  suggestion  to  cheaper  workers ;  it  reached  far  into 
societies  that  never  knew  its  existence;  it  was  an  organ  worth  playing 
on ;  and,  in  the  fancy  of  Henry  Adams,  it  led,  in  some  indistinct 
future,  to  playing  on  a  New  York  daily  newspaper. 

With  the  Editor's  letter  under  his  eyes,  Adams  asked  himself  what 
better  he  could  have  done.  On  the  whole,  considering  his  helplessness, 
he  thought  he  had  done  as  well  as  his  neighbors.  No  one  could  yet 
guess  which  of  his  contemporaries  was  most  likely  to  play  a  part  in  the 
great  world.  A  shrewd  prophet  in  Wall  Street  might  perhaps  have  set 
a  mark  on  Pierpont  Morgan,  but  hardly  on  the  Rockefellers  or  William 
C.  Whitney  or  Whitelaw  Reid.  No  one  would  have  picked  out  James 
McKinley  or  John  Hay  or  Mark  Hanna  for  great  statesmen.  Boston 
was  ignorant  of  the  careers  in  store  for  Alex.  Agassiz  and  Henry 
Higginson.  Phillips  Brooks  was  unknown ;  Henry  James  was  unheard ; 
Ho  wells  was  new ;  Richardson  and  LaFarge  were  struggling  for  a  start. 
Out  of  any  score  of  names  and  reputations  that  should  reach  beyond 


204  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY   ADAMS 

the  century,  the  thirty-years-old  who  were  starting  in  the  year  1867 
could  show  none  that  was  so  far  in  advance  as  to  warrant  odds  in  its 
favor.  The  army-men  had  for  the  most  part  fallen  to  the  ranks.  Had 
Adams  foreseen  the  future  exactly  as  it  came,  he  would  have  been  no 
wiser,  and  could  have  chosen  no  better  path. 

Thus  it  turned  out  that  the  last  year  in  England  was  the  pleas- 
antest.  He  was  already  old  in  society,  and  belonged  to  the  Silurian 
horizon.  The  Prince  of  Wales  had  come.  Mr.  Disraeli,  Lord  Stanley 
and  the  future  Lord  Salisbury  had  thrown  into  the  background  the 
memories  of  Palmerston  and  Russell.  Europe  was  moving  rapidly,  and 
the  conduct  of  England  during  the  American  civil  war  was  the  last 
thing  that  London  liked  to  recall.  The  revolution  since  1861  was 
nearly  complete,  and,  for  the  first  time  in  history,  the  American  felt 
himself  almost  as  strong  as  an  Englishman.  He  had  thirty  years  to 
wait  before  he  should  feel  himself  stronger.  Meanwhile  even  a  private 
secretary  could  afford  to  be  happy.  His  old  education  was  finished ; 
his  new  one  was  not  begun ;  he  still  loitered  a  year,  feeling  himself 
near  the  end  of  a  very  long,  anxious,  tempestuous,  successful  voyage, 
with  another  to  follow,  and  a  summer  sea  between. 

He  made  what  use  he  could  of  it.  In  February,  1868,  he  was  back 
in  Eome  with  his  friend  Milnes  Gaskell.  For  another  season  he 
wandered  on  horseback  over  the  campagna  or  on  foot  through  the 
Rome  of  the  middle-ages,  and  sat  once  more  on  the  steps  of  Ara  Cceli, 
as  had  become  with  him  almost  a  superstition,  like  the  waters  of  the 
fountain  of  Trevi.  Rome  was  still  tragic  and  solemn  as  ever,  with  its 
mediaeval  society,  artistic,  literary  and  clerical,  taking  itself  as  seriously 
as  in  the  days  of  Byron  and  Shelley.  The  long  ten  years  of  accidental 
education  had  changed  nothing  for  him  there.  He  knew  no  more  in  1868 
than  in  1858.  He  had  learned  nothing  whatever  that  made  Rome 
more  intelligible  to  him,  or  made  life  easier  to  handle.  The  case  was 
no  better  when  he  got  back  to  London  and  went  through  his  last 
season.  London  had  become  his  vice.  He  loved  his  haunts,  his  houses, 
his  habits,  and  even  his  Hansom  cabs.  He  loved  growling  like  an 
Englishman,  and  going  into  society  where  he  knew  not  a  face,  and 
cared  not  a  straw.  He  lived  deep  into  the  lives  and  loves  and  dis 
appointments  of  his  friends.  When  at  last  he  found  himself  back  again 


DARWINISM  205 

at  Liverpool,  his  heart  wrenched  by  the  act  of  parting,  he  moved 
mechanically,  unstrung,  but  he  had  no  more  acquired  education  than 
when  he  first  trod  the  steps  of  the  Adelphi  Hotel  in  November,  1858. 
He  could  see  only  one  great  change,  and  this  was  wholly  in  years. 
Eaton  Hall  no  longer  impressed  his  imagination ;  even  the  architecture 
of  Chester  roused  but  a  sleepy  interest;  he  felt  no  sensation  whatever  in 
the  atmosphere  of  the  British  peerage,  but  mainly  an  habitual  dislike 
to  most  of  the  people  who  frequented  their  country-houses ;  he  had 
become  English  to  the  point  of  sharing  their  petty  social  divisions,  their 
dislikes  and  prejudices  against  each  other;  he  took  England  no  longer 
with  the  awe  of  American  youth,  but  with  the  habit  of  an  old  and  rather 
worn  suit  of  clothes.  As  far  as  he  knew,  this  was  all  that  Englishmen 
meant  by  social  education,  but  in  any  case  it  was  all  the  education 
he  had  gained  from  seven  years  in  London. 


CHAPTEE    XVI 

1868 

At  ten  o'clock  of  a  July  night,  in  heat  that  made  the  tropical  rain- 
shower  simmer,  the  Adams  family  and  the  Motley  family  clambered 
down  the  side  of  their  Cunard  steamer  into  the  government  tugboat, 
which  set  them  ashore  in  black  darkness  at  the  end  of  some  North 
River  pier.  Had  they  been  Tyrian  traders  of  the  year  B.  C.  1000, 
landing  from  a  galley  fresh  from  Gibraltar,  they  could  hardly  have 
been  stranger  on  the  shore  of  a  world,  so  changed  from  what  it  had 
been  ten  years  before.  The  historian  of  the  Dutch,  no  longer  historian 
but  diplomatist,  started  up  an  unknown  street,  in  company  with  the 
private  secretary  who  had  become  private  citizen,  in  search  of  carriages 
to  convey  the  two  parties  to  the  Brevoort  House.  The  pursuit  was  arduous 
but  successful.  Towards  midnight  they  found  shelter  once  more  in  their 
native  land. 

How  much  its  character  had  changed  or  was  changing,  they  could 
not  wholly  know,  and  they  could  but  partly  feel.  For  that  matter,  the 
land  itself  knew  no  more  than  they.  Society  in  America  was  always 
trying,  almost  as  blindly  as  an  earthworm,  to  realise  and  understand 
itself;  to  catch  up  with  its  own  head,  and  to  twist  about  in  search  of  its 
tail.  Society  offered  the  profile  of  a  long,  straggling  caravan,  stretching 
loosely  towards  the  prairies,  its  few  score  of  leaders  far  in  advance  and 
its  millions  of  immigrants,  negroes  and  Indians  far  in  the  rear,  somewhere 
in  archaic  time.  It  enjoyed  the  vast  advantage  over  Europe  that  all 
seemed  for  the  moment,  to  move  in  one  direction,  while  Europe  wasted 
most  of  its  energy  in  trying  several  contradictory  movements  at  once ; 
but  whenever  Europe  or  Asia  should  be  polarised  or  oriented  towards 
206 


THE  PRESS  207 

the  same  point,  America  might  easily  lose  her  lead.  Meanwhile  each 
newcomer  needed  to  slip  into  a  place  as  near  the  head  of  the  caravan  as 
possible,  and  needed  most  to  know  where  the  leaders  could  be  found. 

One  could  divine  pretty  nearly  where  the  force  lay,  since  the  last 
ten  years  had  given  to  the  great  mechanical  energies,  —  coal,  iron,  steam, — 
a  distinct  superiority  in  power  over  the  old  industrial  elements, — agri 
culture,  handwork  and  learning; — but  the  result  of  this  revolution  on 
a  survivor  from  the  fifties  resembled  the  action  of  the  earthworm ;  he 
twisted  about,  in  vain,  to  recover  his  starting-point ;  he  could  no  longer 
see  his  own  trail ;  he  had  become  an  estray ;  a  flotsam  or  jetsam  of 
wreckage ;  a  belated  reveller,  or  a  scholar-gipsy  like  Matthew  Arnold's. 
His  world  was  dead.  Not  a  Polish  Jew  fresh  from  Warsaw  or  Cracow, — 
not  a  furtive  Yacoob  or  Ysaac  still  reeking  of  the  Ghetto,  snarling  a 
wierd  Yiddish  to  the  officers  of  the  customs, — but  had  a  keener  instinct, 
an  intenser  energy,  and  a  freer  hand  than  he, — American  of  Americans, 
with  Heaven  knew  how  many  Puritans  and  Patriots  behind  him,  and  an 
education  that  had  cost  a  civil  war.  He  made  no  complaint  and  found 
no  fault  with  his  time ;  he  was  no  worse  off  than  the  Indians  or  the 
buffalo  who  had  been  ejected  from  their  heritage  by  his  own  people ; 
but  he  vehemently  insisted  that  he  was  not  himself  at  fault.  The  defeat 
was  not  due  to  him,  nor  yet  to  any  superiority  of  his  rivals.  He  had 
been  unfairly  forced  out  of  the  track,  and  must  get  back  into  it  as  best 
he  could. 

One  comfort  he  could  enjoy  to  the  full.  Little  as  he  might  be 
fitted  for  the  work  that  was  before  him,  he  had  only  to  look  at  his  father 
and  Motley  to  see  figures  less  fitted  for  it  than  he.  All  were  equally 
survivals  from  the  forties,  —  bric-a-brac  from  the  time  of  Louis  Philippe ; 
stylists ;  doctrinaires ;  ornaments  that  had  been  more  or  less  suited  to 
the  colonial  architecture,  but  which  never  had  much  value  in  Desbrosses 
Street  or  Fifth  Avenue.  They  could  scarcely  have  earned  five  dollars 
a  day  in  any  modern  industry.  The  men  who  commanded  high  pay  were 
as  a  rule  not  ornamental.  Even  Commodore  Vanderbilt  and  Jay  Gould 
lacked  social  charm.  Doubtless  the  country  needed  ornament,  —  needed 
it  very  badly  indeed, — but  it  needed  energy  still  more,  and  capital  most 
of  all,  for  its  supply  was  ridiculously  out  of  proportion  to  its  wants. 
On  the  new  scale  of  power,  merely  to  make  the  continent  habitable 


208  THE   EDUCATION   OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

for  civilised  people  would  require  an  immediate  outlay  that  would  have 
bankrupted  the  world.  As  yet,  no  portion  of  the  world  except  a  few 
narrow  stretches  of  western  Europe  had  ever  been  tolerably  provided 
with  the  essentials  of  comfort  and  convenience ;  to  fit  out  an  entire 
continent  with  roads  and  the  decencies  of  life  would  exhaust  the  credit  of 
the  entire  planet.  Such  an  estimate  seemed  outrageous  to  a  Texan 
member  of  Congress  who  loved  the  simplicity  of  nature's  noblemen ;  but 
the  mere  suggestion  that  a  sun  existed  above  him  would  outrage  the 
self-respect  of  a  deep-sea  fish  that  carried  a  lantern  on  the  end  of  its 
nose.  From  the  moment  that  railways  were  introduced,  life  took  on 
extravagance. 

Thus  the  belated  reveller  who  landed  in  the  dark  at  the  Desbrosses 
Street  ferry,  found  his  energies  exhausted  in  the  effort  to  see  his  own 
length.  The  new  Americans,  of  whom  he  was  to  be  one,  must,  whether 
they  were  fit  or  unfit,  create  a  world  of  their  own,  a  science,  a  society, 
a  philosophy,  a  universe,  where  they  had  not  yet  created  a  road  or  even 
learned  to  dig  their  own  iron.  They  had  no  time  for  thought ;  they  saw, 
and  could  see,  nothing  beyond  their  day's  work ;  their  attitude  to  the 
universe  outside  them  was  that  of  the  deep-sea  fish.  Above  all,  they 
naturally  and  intensely  disliked  to  be  told  what  to  do,  and  how  to  do  it, 
by  men  who  took  their  ideas  and  their  methods  from  the  abstract  theories 
of  history,  philosophy  or  theology.  They  knew  enough  to  know  that 
their  world  was  one  of  energies  quite  new. 

All  this,  the  new  comer  understood  and  accepted,  since  he  could 
not  help  himself  and  saw  that  the  American  could  help  himself  as 
little  as  the  new  comer ;  but  the  fact  remained  that  the  more  he  knew, 
the  less  he  was  educated.  Society  knew  as  much  as  this,  and  seemed 
rather  inclined  to  boast  of  it,  at  least  on  the  stump ;  but  the  leaders 
of  industry  betrayed  no  sentiment,  popular  or  other.  They  used,  without 
qualm,  whatever  instruments  they  found  at  hand.  They  had  been  obliged, 
in  1861,  to  turn  aside  and  waste  immense  energy  in  settling  what  had 
been  settled  a  thousand  years  before,  and  should  never  have  been  revived. 
At  prodigious  expense,  by  sheer  force,  they  broke  resistance  down,  leaving 
everything  but  the  mere  fact  of  power  untouched,  since  nothing  else 
had  a  solution.  Kace  and  thought  were  beyond  reach.  Having  cleared 
its  path  so  far,  society  went  back  to  its  work,  and  threw  itself  on  that 


THE  PRESS  209 

which  stood  first : — its  roads.  The  field  was  vast ;  altogether  beyond  its 
power  to  control  off-hand ;  and  society  dropped  every  thought  of  dealing 
with  anything  more  than  the  single  fraction  called  a  railway-system. 
This  relatively  small  part  of  its  task  was  still  so  big  as  to  need  the 
energies  of  a  generation,  for  it  required  all  the  new  machinery  to  be 
created : — capital,  banks,  mines,  furnaces,  shops,  power-houses,  technical 
knowledge,  mechanical  population,  together  with  a  steady  remodelling 
of  social  and  political  habits,  ideas  and  institutions  to  fit  the  new  scale 
and  suit  the  new  conditions.  The  generation  between  1865  and  1895 
was  already  mortgaged  to  the  railways,  and  no  one  knew  it  better 
than  the  generation  itself. 

Whether  Henry  Adams  knew  it  or  not,  he  knew  enough  to  act 
as  though  he  did.  He  reached  Quincy  once  more,  ready  for  the  new 
start.  His  brother  Charles  had  determined  to  strike  for  the  railroads ; 
Henry  was  to  strike  for  the  press ;  and  they  hoped  to  play  into  each 
other's  hands.  They  had  great  need,  for  they  found  no  one  else  to 
play  with.  After  discovering  the  worthlessness  of  a  so-called  education, 
they  had  still  to  discover  the  worthlessness  of  so-called  social  connection. 
No  young  man  -had  a  larger  acquaintance  and  relationship  than  Henry 
Adams,  yet  he  knew  no  one  who  could  help  him.  He  was  for  sale,  in 
the  open  market.  So  were  many  of  his  friends.  All  the  world  knew 
it,  and  knew  too  that  they  were  cheap ;  to  be  bought  at  the  price  of  a 
mechanic.  There  was  no  concealment,  no  delicacy,  and  no  illusion  about 
it.  Neither  he  nor  his  friends  complained ;  but  he  felt  sometimes  a 
little  surprised  that,  as  far  as  he  knew,  no  one,  seeking  in  the  labor- 
market,  ever  so  much  as  inquired  about  their  fitness.  The  want  of 
solidarity  between  old  and  young  seemed  American.  The  young  man 
was  required  to  ••  impose  himself,  by  the  usual  business  methods,  as  a 
necesssity  on  his  elders,  in  order  to  compel  them  to  buy  him  as  an 
investment.  As  Adams  felt  it,  he  was  in  a  manner  expected  to  black 
mail.  Many  a  young  man  complained  to  him  in  after  life  of  the 
same  experience,  which  became  a  matter  of  curious  reflection  as  he  grew 
old.  The  labor-market  of  good  society  was  ill-organised. 

Boston  seemed  to  offer  no  market  for  educated  labor.  A  peculiar 
and  perplexing  amalgam  Boston  always  was,  and  although  it  had  changed 
much  in  ten  years,  it  was  not  less  perplexing.  One  no  longer  dined 
14 


210  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

at  two  o'clock ;  one  could  no  longer  skate  on  Back  Bay ;  one  heard 
talk  of  Bostonians  worth  five  millions  or  more  as  something  not 
incredible.  Yet  the  place  seemed  still  simple,  and  less  restless-minded 
than  ever  before.  In  the  line  that  Adams  had  chosen  to  follow,  he 
needed  more  than  all  else  the  help  of  the  press,  but  any  shadow  of 
hope  on  that  side  vanished  instantly.  The  less  one  meddled  with  the 
Boston  press,  the  better.  All  the  newspaper-men  were  clear  on  that 
point.  The  same  was  true  of  politics.  Boston  meant  business.  The 
Bostonians  were  building  railways.  Adams  would  have  liked  to  help 
in  building  railways,  but  had  no  education.  He  was  not  fit. 

He  passed  three  or  four  months  thus,  visiting  relations,  renewing 
friendships,  and  studying  the  situation.  At  thirty  years  old,  the  man 
who  has  not  yet  got  further  than  to  study  the  situation,  is  lost,  or  near  it. 
He  could  see  nothing  in  the  situation  that  could  be  of  use  to  him.  His 
friends  had  won  no  more  from  it  than  he.  His  brother  Charles,  after 
three  years  of  civil  life,  was  no  better  off  than  himself,  except  for  being 
married  and  in  greater  need  of  income.  His  brother  John  had  become 
a  brilliant  political  leader  on  the  wrong  side.  No  one  had  yet  regained 
the  lost  ground  of  the  war. 

He  went  to  Newport  and  tried  to  be  fashionable,  but  even  in  the 
simple  life  of  1868,  he  failed  as  fashion.  All  the  style  he  had  learned 
so  painfully  in  London  was  worse  than  useless  in  America  where  every 
standard  was  different.  Newport  was  charming,  but  it  asked  for  no 
education  and  gave  none.  What  it  gave  was  much  gayer  and  pleasanter, 
and  one  enjoyed  it  amazingly ;  but  friendships  in  that  society  were  a 
kind  of  social  partnership,  like  the  classes  at  College ;  not  education  but 
the  subjects  of  education.  All  were  doing  the  same  thing,  and  asking 
the  same  question  of  the  future.  None  could  help.  Society  seemed  founded 
on  the  law  that  all  was  for  the  best  New  Yorkers  in  the  best  of 
Newports,  and  that  all  young  people  were  rich  if  they  could  waltz.  It  was 
a  new  version  of  the  Ant  and  Grasshopper. 

At  the  end  of  three  months,  the  only  person,  among  the  hundreds  he 
had  met,  who  had  offered  him  a  word  of  encouragement  or  had  shown  a 
sign  of  acquaintance  with  his  doings,  was  Edward  Atkinson.  Boston 
was  cool  towards  sons,  whether  prodigals  or  other,  and  needed  much 
time  to  make  up  its  mind  what  to  do  for  them, — time  which  Adams, 


THE   PRESS  211 

at  thirty  years  old,  could  hardly  spare.  He  had  not  the  courage  or  self- 
confidence  to  hire  an  office  in  State  Street,  as  so  many  of  his  friends 
did,  and  doze  there  alone,  vacuity  within  and  a  snow-storm  outside, 
waiting  for  Fortune  to  knock  at  the  door,  or  hoping  to  find  her  asleep 
in  the  elevator ;  or  on  the  stair-case,  since  elevators  were  not  yet  in  use. 
Whether  this  course  would  have  offered  his  best  chance  he  never  knew ; 
it  was  one  of  the  points  in  practical  education  which  most  needed  a  clear 
understanding,  and  could  never  reach  it.  His  father  and  mother 
would  have  been  glad  to  see  him  stay  with  them  and  begin  reading 
Blackstone  again,  and  he  showed  no  very  filial  tenderness  by  abruptly 
breaking  the  tie  that  had  lasted  so  long.  After  all,  perhaps  Beacon 
Street  was  as  good  as  any  other  street  for  his  objects  in  life ;  possibly  his 
easiest  and  surest  path  was  from  Beacon  Street  to  State  Street  and  back 
again,  all  the  days  of  his  years.  Who  could  tell  ?  Even  after  life  was 
over,  the  doubt  could  not  be  determined. 

In  thus  sacrificing  his  heritage,  he  only  followed  the  path  that 
had  led  him  from  the  beginning.  Boston  was  full  of  his  brothers. 
He  had  reckoned  from  childhood  on  outlawry  as  his  peculiar  birthright. 
The  mere  thought  of  beginning  life  again  in  Mt.  Vernon  Street  lowered 
the  pulsations  of  his  heart.  This  is  a  story  of  education, — not  a  mere 
lesson  of  life,  —  and,  with  education,  temperament  has  in  strictness 
nothing  to  do,  although  in  practice  they  run  close  together.  Neither 
by  temperament  nor  by  education  was  he  fitted  for  Boston.  He  had 
drifted  far  away  and  behind  his  companions  there ;  no  one  trusted  his 
temperament  or  education ;  he  had  to  go. 

Since  no  other  path  seemed  to  offer  itself,  he  stuck  to  his  plan  of 
joining  the  press,  and  selected  Washington  as  the  shortest  road  to  New 
York,  but,  in  1868,  Washington  stood  outside  the  social  pale.  No 
Bostonian  had  ever  gone  there.  One  announced  oneself  as  an  adventurer 
and  an  office-seeker,  a  person  of  deplorably  bad  judgment,  and  the  charges 
were  true.  The  chances  of  ending  in  the  gutter  were,  at  best,  even. 
The  risk  was  the  greater  in  Adams's  case,  because  he  had  no  very  clear 
idea  what  to  do  when  he  got  there.  That  he  must  educate  himself  over 
again,  for  objects  quite  new,  in  an  air  altogether  hostile  to  his  old  educa 
tions,  was  the  only  certainty;  but  how  he  was  to  do  it, — how  he  was 
to  convert  the  idler  in  Rotten  Row  into  the  lobbyist  of  the  Capital,— 


212  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

he  had  not  an  idea,  and  no  one  to  teach  him.  The  question  of  money 
is  rarely  serious  for  a  young  American  unless  he  is  married,  and  money 
never  troubled  Adams  more  than  others ;  not  because  he  had  it,  but  because 
he  could  do  without  it,  like  most  people  in  Washington  who  all  lived 
on  the  income  of  brick-layers ;  but  with  or  without  money  he  met  the 
difficulty  that,  after  getting  to  Washington  in  order  to  go  on  the  press,  it 
was  necessary  to  seek  a  press  to  go  on.  For  large  work  he  could  count 
on  the  North  American  Review,  but  this  was  scarcely  a  press.  For  current 
discussion  and  correspondence,  he  could  depend  on  the  New  York  Nation; 
but  what  he  needed  was  a  New  York  daily,  and  no  New  York 
daily  needed  him.  He  lost  his  one  chance  by  the  death  of  Henry 
J.  Raymond.  The  Tribune  under  Horace  Greeley  was  out  of  the 
question  both  for  political  and  personal  reasons,  and  because  Whitelaw 
Reid  had  already  undertaken  that  singularly  venturesome  position,  amid 
difficulties  that  would  have  swamped  Adams  in  four-and-twenty  hours. 
Charles  A.  Dana  had  made  the  Sun  a  very  successful  as  well  as  a  very 
amusing  paper,  but  had  hurt  his  own  social  position  in  doing  it ;  and 
Adams  knew  himself  well  enough  to  know  that  he  could  never  please 
himself  and  Dana  too ;  with  the  best  intentions,  he  must  always  fail  as  a 
blackguard,  and  at  that  time  a  strong  dash  of  blackguardism  was  life  to 
the  Sun.  As  for  the  New  York  Herald,  it  was  a  despotic  empire  admitting 
no  personality  but  that  of  Bennett.  Thus  for  the  moment,  the  New 
York  daily  press  offered  no  field  except  the  free-trade  Holy  Land  of  the 
Evening  Post  under  William  Cullen  Bryant,  while  beside  it  lay  only 
the  elevated  plateau  of  the  New  Jerusalem  occupied  by  Godkin  and  the 
Nation.  Much  as  Adams  liked  Godkin,  and  glad  as  he  was  to  creep  under 
the  shelter  of  the  Evening  Post  and  the  Nation,  he  was  well  aware  that 
he  should  find  there  only  the  same  circle  of  readers  that  he  reached  in 
the  North  American  Review. 

The  outlook  was  dim,  but  it  was  all  he  had,  and  at  Washington, 
except  for  the  personal  friendship  of  Mr.  Evarts  who  was  then  Attorney- 
General  and  living  there,  he  would  stand  in  solitude  much  like  that  of 
London  in  1861.  Evarts  did  what  no  one  in  Boston  seemed  to  care  for 
doing ;  he  held  out  a  hand  to  the  young  man.  Whether  Boston,  like 
Salem,  really  shunned  strangers  or  whether  Evarts  was  an  exception  even 
in  New  York,  he  had  the  social  instinct  which  Boston  had  not.  Generous 


THE   PRESS  213 

by  nature,  prodigal  in  hospitality,  fond  of  young  people,  and  a  born 
man-of-the-world,  Evarts  gave  and  took  liberally,  without  scruple,  and 
accepted  the  world  without  fearing  or  abusing  it.  His  wit  was  the  least 
part  of  his  social  attraction.  His  talk  was  broad  and  free.  He  laughed 
where  he  could  :  he  joked  if  a  joke  was  possible ;  he  was  true  to  his  friends, 
and  never  lost  his  temper  or  became  ill-natured.  Like  all  New  Yorkers  he 
was  decidedly  not  a  Bostonian ;  but  he  was  what  one  might  call  a  trans 
planted  New  Englander,  like  General  Sherman ;  a  variety,  grown  in  ranker 
soil.  In  the  course  of  life,  and  in  widely  different  countries,  Adams  incurred 
heavy  debts  of  gratitude  to  persons  on  whom  he  had  no  claim  and  to  whom 
he  could  seldom  make  return  ;  perhaps  half  a  dozen  such  debts  remained 
unpaid  at  last,  although  six  is  a  large  number  as  lives  go ;  but  kindness 
seldom  came  more  happily  than  when  Mr.  Evarts  took  him  to  Washington 
in  October,  1868. 

Adams  accepted  the  hospitality  of  the  sleeper,  with  deep  gratitude, 
the  more  because  his  first  struggle  with  a  sleeping-car  made  him  doubt 
the  value — to  him  —  of  a  Pullman  civilisation;  but  he  was  even  more 
grateful  for  the  shelter  of  Mr.  Evarts's  house  in  H  Street  at  the  corner 
of  14th,  where  he  abode  in  safety  and  content  till  he  found  rooms  in  the 
roomless  village.  To  him  the  village  seemed  unchanged.  Had  he  not 
known  that  a  great  war  and  eight  years  of  astonishing  movement  had 
passed  over  it,  he  would  have  noticed  nothing  that  betrayed  growth.  As 
of  old,  houses  were  few ;  rooms  fewer ;  even  the  men  were  the  same.  No 
one  seemed  to  miss  the  usual  comforts  of  civilisation,  and  Adams  was 
glad  to  get  rid  of  them,  for  his  best  chance  lay  in  the  eighteenth  century. 

The  first  step  of  course,  was  the  making  of  acquaintance,  and  the 
first  acquaintance  was  naturally  the  President,  to  whom  an  aspirant  to 
the  press  officially  paid  respect.  Evarts  immediately  took  him  to  the 
White  House  and  presented  him  to  President  Andrew  Johnson.  The 
interview  was  brief  and  consisted  in  the  stock  remark  common  to 
monarchs  and  valets,  that  the  young  man  looked  even  younger  than  he 
was.  The  young  man  felt  even  younger  than  he  looked.  He  never  saw 
the  President  again,  and  never  felt  a  wish  to  see  him,  for  Andrew 
Johnson  was  not  the  sort  of  man  whom  a  young  reformer  of  thirty, 
with  two  or  three  foreign  educations,  was  likely  to  see  with  enthusiasm ; 
yet,  musing  over  the  interview  as  a  matter  of  education,  long  years 


214  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

afterwards,  he  could  not  keep  recalling  the  President's  figure  with  a 
distinctness  that  surprised  him.  The  old-fashioned  southern  senator  and 
statesman  sat  in  his  chair  at  his  desk  with  a  look  of  self-esteem  that 
had  its  value.  None  doubted.  All  were  great  men ;  some,  no  doubt, 
were  greater  than  others,  but  all  were  statesmen  and  all  were  supported, 
lifted,  inspired  by  the  moral  certainty  of  Tightness.  To  them  the 
universe  was  serious,  even  solemn,  but  it  was  their  universe,  a  southern 
conception  of  right.  Lamar  used  to  say  that  he  never  entertained  a 
doubt  of  the  soundness  of  the  southern  system  until  he  found  that 
slavery  could  not  stand  a  war.  Slavery  was  only  a  part  of  the  southern 
system,  and  the  life  of  it  all, — the  vigor, — the  poetry, — was  its  moral 
certainty  of  self.  The  southerner  could  not  doubt ;  and  this  self-assurance 
not  only  gave  Andrew  Johnson  the  look  of  a  true  President,  but 
actually  made  him  one.  When  Adams  came  to  look  back  on  it  after 
wards,  he  was  surprised  to  realise  how  strong  the  Executive  was  in 
1868, — perhaps  the  strongest  he  was  ever  to  see.  Certainly  he  never 
again  found  himself  so  well  satisfied,  or  so  much  at  home. 

Seward  was  still  Secretary  of  State.  Hardly  yet  an  old  man 
though  showing  marks  of  time  and  violence,  Mr.  Seward  seemed  little 
changed  in  these  eight  years.  He  was  the  same — with  a  difference. 
Perhaps  he, — unlike  Henry  Adams, — had  at  last  got  an  education,  and 
all  he  wanted.  Perhaps  he  had  resigned  himself  to  doing  without  it. 
Whatever  the  reason,  although  his  manner  was  as  roughly  kind  as  ever, 
and  his  talk  as  free,  he  appeared  to  have  closed  his  account  with  the 
public;  he  no  longer  seemed  to  care;  he  asked  nothing,  gave  nothing, 
and  invited  no  support ;  he  talked  little  of  himself  or  of  others,  and 
waited  only  for  his  discharge.  Adams  was  well  pleased  to  be  near  him 
in  these  last  days  of  his  power  and  fame,  and  went  much  to  his  house 
in  the  evenings  when  he  was  sure  to  be  at  his  whist.  At  last,  as  the 
end  drew  near,  wanting  to  feel  that  the  great  man, — the  only  chief  he 
ever  served  even  as  a  volunteer, — recognised  some  personal  relation,  he 
asked  Mr.  Seward  to  dine  with  him  one  evening  in  his  rooms,  and 
play  his  game  of  whist  there,  as  he  did  every  night  in  his  own  house. 
Mr.  Seward  came  and  had  his  whist,  and  Adams  remembered  his 
rough  parting-speech  :  "  A  very  sensible  entertainment !  "  It  was  the 
only  favor  he  ever  asked  of  Mr.  Seward,  and  the  only  one  he  ever 
accepted. 


THE  PRESS  215 

Thus,  as  a  teacher  of  wisdom,  after  twenty  years  of  example, 
Governor  Seward  passed  out  of  one's  life,  and  Adams  lost  what  should 
have  been  his  firmest  ally;  but  in  truth  the  State  Department  had 
ceased  to  be  the  centre  of  his  interest,  and  the  Treasury  had  taken  its 
place.  The  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  was  a  man  new  to  politics, — 
Hugh  McCulloch, — not  a  person  of  much  importance  in  the  eyes  of 
practical  politicians  such  as  young  members  of  the  press  meant  them 
selves  to  become,  but  they  all  liked  Mr.  McCulloch  though  they  thought 
him  a  stop-gap  rather  than  a  force.  Had  they  known  what  sort  of 
forces  the  Treasury  was  to  offer  them  for  support  in  the  generation  to 
come,  they  might  have  reflected  a  long  while  on  their  estimate  of 
McCulloch.  Adams  was  fated  to  watch  the  Sittings  of  many  more 
Secretaries  than  he  ever  cared  to  know,  and  he  rather  came  back  in  the 
end  to  the  idea  that  McCulloch  was  the  best  of  them,  although  he 
seemed  to  represent  everything  that  one  liked  least.  He  was  no 
politician,  he  had  no  party,  and  no  power.  He  was  not  fashionable  or 
decorative.  He  was  a  banker,  and  towards  bankers  Adams  felt  the 
narrow  prejudice  which  the  serf  feels  to  his  overseer ;  for  he  knew  he 
must  obey,  and  he  knew  that  the  helpless  showed  only  their  helplessness 
when  they  tempered  obedience  by  mockery.  The  world,  after  1865 
became  a  bankers'  world,  and  no  banker  would  ever  trust  one  who  had 
deserted  State  Street,  and  had  gone  to  Washington  with  purposes  of 
doubtful  credit,  or  of  no  credit  at  all,  for  he  could  not  have  put  up 
enough  collateral  to  borrow  five  thousand  dollars  of  any  bank  in 
America.  The  banker  never  would  trust  him,  and  he  would  never 
trust  the  banker.  To  him,  the  banking  mind  was  obnoxious ;  and  this 
antipathy  caused  him  the  more  surprise  at  finding  McCulloch  the 
broadest,  most  liberal,  most  genial  and  most  practical  public  man  in 
Washington. 

There  could  be  no  doubt  of  it.  The  burden  of  the  Treasury  at 
that  time  was  very  great.  The  whole  financial  system  was  in  chaos ; 
every  part  of  it  required  reform ;  the  utmost  experience,  tact  and  skill 
could  not  make  the  machine  work  smoothly.  No  one  knew  how  well 
McCulloch  did  it  until  his  successor  took  it  in  charge,  and  tried  to 
correct  his  methods.  Adams  did  not  know  enough  to  appreciate 
McCulloch's  technical  skill,  but  he  was  struck  at  his  open  and  generous 


216  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

treatment  of  young  men.  Of  all  rare  qualities,  tins  was,  in  Adams's 
experience,  the  rarest.  As  a  rule,  officials  dread  interference.  The 
strongest  often  resent  it  most.  Any  official  who  admits  equality  in 
discussion  of  his  official  course,  feels  it  to  be  an  act  of  virtue ;  after  a 
few  months  or  years  he  tires  of  the  effort.  Every  friend  in  power  is  a 
friend  lost.  This  rule  is  so  nearly  absolute  that  it  may  be  taken  in 
practice  as  admitting  no  exception.  Apparent  exceptions  exist,  and 
McCulloch  was  one  of  them. 

McCulloch   had   been   spared   the  gluttonous  selfishness  and  infantile 
jealousy    which   are   the   commoner    results   of    early   political    education. 
He  had  neither  past  nor   future,  and   could   afford   to  be   careless  of  his 
company.     Adams   found   him   surrounded   by  all   the   active  and  intelli 
gent   young   men  in  the   country.     Full  of  faith,  greedy  for  work,  eager 
for   reform,   energetic,    confident,   capable,   quick   of  study,  charmed   with 
a    fight,   equally   ready   to   defend    or    attack,   they    were    unselfish,   and 
even, — as   young  men  went, — honest.     They  came  mostly  from  the  army, 
with  the  spirit  of  the  volunteers.     Frank  Walker,  Frank  Barlow,  Frank 
Bartlett  were   types  of  the   generation.     Most  of  the   press,  and  much  of 
the   public,  especially   in   the   west,   shared   their   ideas.     No   one   denied 
the  need  for  reform.      The  whole  government,  from  top   to   bottom,  was 
rotten  with    the   senility  of  what  was    antiquated   and   the   instability    of 
what  was   improvised.     The  currency   was   only   one   example ;  the   tariff 
was   another ;  but  the   whole   fabric   required   reconstruction   as   much   as 
in    1789,    for   the   Constitution    had    become   as   antiquated   as   the    Con 
federation.     Sooner  or  later  a  shock   must   come,  the  more  dangerous  the 
longer    postponed.     The    civil    war    had    made    a    new   system    in    fact ; 
the   country   would    have   to   reorganise    the    machinery   in   practice  and 
theory. 

One  might  discuss  indefinitely  the  question  which  branch  of  govern 
ment  needed  reform  most  urgently ;  all  needed  it  enough,  but  no  one 
denied  that  the  finances  were  a  scandal,  and  a  constant,  universal  nuisance. 
The  tariff  was  worse,  though  more  interests  upheld  it.  McCulloch  had 
the  singular  merit  of  facing  reform  with  large  good-nature  and  willing 
sympathy,  —  outside  of  parties,  jobs,  bargains,  corporations  or  intrigues, 
—  which  Adams  never  was  to  meet  again. 

Chaos   often  breeds    life,  when   order  breeds  habit.       The  civil  war 


THE   PRESS  217 

had  bred  life.  The  army  bred  courage.  Young  men  of  the  volunteer 
type  were  not  always  docile  under  control,  but  they  were  handy  in  a  fight. 
Adams  was  greatly  pleased  to  be  admitted  as  one  of  them.  He  found 
himself  much  at  home  with  them,  —  more  at  home  than  he  ever  had  been 
before,  or  was  ever  to  be  again — in  the  atmosphere  of  the  Treasury.  He 
had  no  strong  party  passion,  and  he  felt  as  though  he  and  his  friends 
owned  this  administration,  which,  in  its  dying  days,  had  neither  friends 
nor  future  except  in  them. 

These  were  not  the  only  allies ;  the  whole  government  in  all  its 
branches  was  alive  with  them.  Just  at  that  moment  the  Supreme  Court 
was  about  to  take  up  the  Legal  Tender  cases  where  Judge  Curtis  had 
been  employed  to  argue  against  the  constitutional  power  of  the  government 
to  make  an  artificial  standard  of  value  in  time  of  peace.  Evarts  was 
anxious  to  fix  on  a  line  of  argument  that  should  have  a  chance  of  standing 
up  against  that  of  Judge  Curtis,  and  was  puzzled  to  do  it.  He  did  not 
know  which  foot  to  put  forward.  About  to  deal  with  Judge  Curtis,  the 
last  of  the  strong  jurists  of  Marshall's  school,  he  could  risk  no  chances. 
In  doubt,  the  quickest  way  to  clear  one's  mind  is  to  discuss,  and  Evarts 
deliberately  forced  discussion.  Day  after  day,  driving,  dining,  walking 
he  provoked  Adams  to  dispute  his  positions.  He  needed  an  anvil,  he 
said,  to  hammer  his  ideas  on. 

Adams  was  flattered  at  being  an  anvil,  which  is,  after  all,  more 
solid  than  the  hammer ;  and  he  did  not  feel  called  on  to  treat  Mr.  Evarts's 
arguments  with  more  respect  than  Mr.  Evarts  himself  expressed  for  them ; 
so  he  contradicted  with  freedom.  Like  most  young  men,  he  was  much 
of  a  doctrinaire,  and  the  question  was,  in  any  event,  rather  historical  or 
political  than  legal.  He  could  easily  maintain,  by  way  of  argument, 
that  the  required  power  had  never  been  given,  and  that  no  sound  constitu 
tional  reason  could  possibly  exist  for  authorising  the  government  to 
overthrow  the  standard  of  value  without  necessity,  in  time  of  peace.  The 
dispute  itself  had  not  much  value  for  him,  even  as  education,  but  it  led 
to  his  seeking  light  from  the  Chief  Justice  himself.  Following  up  the 
subject  for  his  letters  to  the  Nation  and  his  articles  in  the  North  American 
Review,  Adams  grew  to  be  intimate  with  the  Chief  Justice,  who,  as  one 
of  the  oldest  and  strongest  leaders  of  the  Free  Soil  party,  had  claims  to 
his  personal  regard ;  for  the  old  Free  Soilers  were  becoming  few.  Like 


218  THE  EDUCATION  OP  HENRY  ADAMS 

all  strong-willed  and  self-asserting  men,  Mr.  Chase  had  the  faults  of  his 
qualities.  He  was  never  easy  to  drive  in  harness,  or  light  in  hand.  He 
saw  vividly  what  was  wrong,  and  did  not  always  allow  for  what  was 
relatively  right.  He  loved  power  as  though  he  were  still  a  Senator.  His 
position  towards  Legal  Tender  was  awkward.  As  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
he  had  been  its  author ;  as  Chief  Justice  he  became  its  enemy.  Legal 
Tender  caused  no  great  pleasure  or  pain  in  the  sum  of  life  to  a  newspaper 
correspondent,  but  it  served  as  a  subject  for  letters,  and  the  Chief  Justice 
was  very  willing  to  win  an  ally  in  the  press  who  would  tell  his  story  as 
he  wished  it  to  be  read.  The  intimacy  in  Mr.  Chase's  house  grew  rapidly, 
and  the  alliance  was  no  small  help  to  the  comforts  of  a  struggling  newspaper 
adventurer  in  Washington.  No  matter  what  one  might  think  of  his 
politics  or  temper,  Mr.  Chase  was  a  dramatic  figure,  of  high  senatorial 
rank,  if  also  of  certain  senatorial  faults ;  a  valuable  ally. 

As  was  sure,  sooner  or  later,  to  happen,  Adams  one  day  met  Charles 
Sumner  on  the  street,  and  instantly  stopped  to  greet  him.  As  though 
eight  years  of  broken  ties  were  the  natural  course  of  friendship,  Sumner 
at  once,  after  an  exclamation  of  surprise,  dropped  back  into  the  relation 
of  hero  to  the  school-boy.  Adams  enjoyed  accepting  it.  He  was  then 
thirty  years  old  and  Sumner  was  fifty-seven ;  he  had  seen  more  of  the 
world  than  Sumner  ever  dreamed  of,  and  he  felt  a  sort  of  amused  curiosity 
to  be  treated  once  more  as  a  child.  At  best,  the  renewal  of  broken 
relations  is  a  nervous  matter,  and  in  this  case  it  bristled  with  thorns, 
for  Sumner's  quarrel  with  Mr.  Adams  had  not  been  the  most  delicate 
of  his  ruptured  relations,  and  he  was  liable  to  be  sensitive  in  many  ways 
that  even  Bostonians  could  hardly  keep  in  constant  mind ;  yet  it  interested 
and  fascinated  Henry  Adams  as  a  new  study  of  political  humanity.  The 
younger  man  knew  that  the  meeting  would  have  to  come,  and  was  ready 
for  it,  if  only  as  a  newspaper  need ;  but  to  Sumner  it  came  as  a  surprise 
and  a  disagreeable  one,  as  Adams  conceived.  He  learned  something  —  a 
piece  of  practical  education  worth  the  effort, — by  watching  Sumner's 
behavior.  He  could  see  that  many  thoughts — mostly  unpleasant — were 
passing  through  his  mind,  since  he  made  no  inquiry  about  any  of  Adams's 
family,  or  allusion  to  any  of  his  friends  or  his  residence  abroad.  He 
talked  only  of  the  present.  To  him,  Adams  in  Washington  should  have 
seemed  more  or  less  of  a  critic,  perhaps  a  spy,  certainly  an  intriguer  or 


THE   PRESS  219 

adventurer  like  scores  of  others ;  a  politician  without  party ;  a  writer 
without  principles ;  an  office-seeker  certain  to  beg  for  support.  All  this 
was,  for  his  purposes,  true.  Adams  could  do  him  no  good,  and  would 
be  likely  to  do  him  all  the  harm  in  his  power.  Adams  accepted  it  all ; 
expected  to  be  kept  at  arm's  length ;  admitted  that  the  reasons  were  just. 
He  was  the  more  surprised  to  see  that  Sumner  invited  a  renewal  of  old 
relations.  He  found  himself  treated  almost  confidentially.  Not  only 
was  he  asked  to  make  a  fourth  at  Sumner's  pleasant  little  dinners  in  the 
house  on  La  Fayette  Square,  but  he  found  himself  admitted  to  the  Senator's 
study  and  informed  of  his  views,  policy  and  purposes,  which  were  some 
times  even  more  astounding  than  his  curious  gaps  or  lapses  of  omniscience. 

On  the  whole,  the  relation  was  the  queerest  that  Henry  Adams 
ever  kept  up.  He  liked  and  admired  Summer,  but  thought  his  mind 
a  pathological  study.  At  times  he  inclined  to  think  that  Mr.  Summer 
felt  his  solitude,  and,  in  the  political  wilderness,  craved  educated  society ; 
but  this  hardly  told  the  whole  story.  Summer's  mind  had  reached  the 
calm  of  water  which  receives  and  reflects  images  without  absorbing  them  ; 
it  contained  nothing  but  itself.  The  images  from  without,  the  objects 
mechanically  perceived  by  the  senses,  existed  by  courtesy  until  the 
mental  surface  was  ruined,  but  never  became  part  of  the  thought. 
Henry  Adams  roused  no  emotion ;  if  he  had  roused  a  disagreeable  one, 
he  would  have  ceased  to  exist.  The  mind  would  have  mechanically 
rejected,  as  it  had  mechanically  admitted  him.  Not  that  Summer  was 
more  aggressively  egoistic  than  other  senators, — Conkling,  for  instance, — 
but  that  with  him  the  disease  had  affected  the  whole  mind ;  it  was 
chronic  and  absolute ;  while,  with  other  senators  for  the  most  part,  it 
was  still  acute. 

Perhaps  for  this  very  reason,  Summer  was  the  more  valuable 
acquaintance  for  a  newspaper-man.  Adams  found  him  most  useful ; 
perhaps  quite  the  most  useful  of  all  these  great  authorities  who  were  the 
stock-in-trade  of  the  newspaper  business;  the  accumulated  capital  of  a 
Silurian  age.  A  few  months  or  years  more,  and  they  were  gone.  In 
1868,  they  were  like  the  town  itself,  changing  but  not  changed. 
La  Fayette  Square  was  society.  Within  a  few  hundred  yards  of  Mr. 
Clark  Mills'  nursery  monument  to  the  equestrian  seat  of  Andrew 
Jackson,  one  found  all  one's  acquaintance  as  well  as  hotels,  banks, 


220  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

markets  and  national  government.  Beyond  the  Square  the  country 
began.  No  rich  or  fashionable  stranger  had  yet  discovered  the  town. 
No  literary  or  scientific  man,  no  artist,  jio  gentleman  without  office  or 
employment,  had  ever  lived  there.  It  was  rural,  and  its  society  was 
primitive.  Scarcely  a  person  in  it  had  ever  known  life  in  a  great  city. 
Mr.  Evarts,  Mr.  Sam  Hooper  of  Boston  and  perhaps  one  or  two  of  the 
diplomatists  had  alone  mixed  in  that  sort  of  world.  The  happy  village 
was  innocent  of  a  club.  The  one-horse  tram  on  F  Street  to  the  Capitol 
was  ample  for  traffic.  Every  pleasant  spring  morning  at  the  Pennsyl 
vania  Station,  society  met  to  bid  good-bye  to  its  friends  going  off  on 
the  single  express.  The  State  Department  was  lodged  in  an  infant 
asylum  far  out  on  Fourteenth  Street  while  Mr.  Mullet  was  constructing 
his  architectural  infant  asylum  next  the  White  House.  The  value  of 
real  estate  had  not  increased  since  1800,  and  the  pavements  were  more 
impassable  than  the  mud.  All  this  favored  a  young  man  who  had 
come  to  make  a  name.  In  four-and-twenty  hours  he  could  know 
everybody ;  in  two  days  everybody  knew  him. 

After  seven  years'  arduous  and  unsuccessful  effort  to  explore  the 
outskirts  of  London  society,  the  Washington  world  offered  an  easy  and 
delightful  repose.  When  he  looked  round  him,  from  the  safe  shelter 
of  Mr.  Evarts's  roof,  on  the  men  he  was  to  work  with — or  against, — he 
had  to  admit  that  nine-tenths  of  his  acquired  education  was  useless,  and 
the  other  tenth  harmful.  He  would  have  to  begin  again  from  the 
beginning.  He  must  learn  to  talk  to  the  western  Congressman,  and  to 
hide  his  own  antecedents.  The  task  was  amusing.  He  could  see 
nothing  to  prevent  him  from  enjoying  it,  with  immoral  unconcern  for  all 
that  had  gone  before  and  for  anything  that  might  follow.  The  lobby 
offered  a  spectacle  almost  picturesque.  Few  figures  on  the  Paris  stage 
were  more  entertaining  and  dramatic  than  old  Sam  Ward,  who  knew 
more  of  life  than  all  the  departments  of  the  government  together, 
including  the  Senate  and  the  Smithsonian.  Society  had  not  much  to 
give,  but  what  it  had,  it  gave  with  an  open  hand.  For  the  moment, 
politics  had  ceased  to  disturb  social  relations.  All  parties  were  mixed 
up  and  jumbled  together  in  a  sort  of  tidal  slack-water.  The  government 
resembled  Adams  himself  in  the  matter  of  education.  All  that  had  gone 
before  was  useless,  and  some  of  it  was  worse. 


CHAPTER    XVII 

1869 

The  first  effect  of  this  leap  into  the  unknown  was  a  fit  of  low  spirits 
new  to  the  young  man's  education ;  due  in  part  to  the  overpowering 
beauty  and  sweetness  of  the  Maryland  autumn,  almost  unendurable  for 
its  strain  on  one  who  had  toned  his  life  down  to  the  November  grays 
and  browns  of  northern  Europe.  Life  could  not  go  on,  so  beautiful  and 
so  sad.  Luckily,  no  one  else  felt  it  or  knew  it.  He  bore  it  as  well 
as  he  could,  and  when  he  picked  himself  up,  winter  had  come,  and  he 
was  settled  in  bachelor's  quarters,  as  modest  as  those  of  a  clerk  in  the 
Departments,  far  out  on  G  Street,  towards  Georgetown,  where  an  old  Finn 
named  Dohna,  who  had  come  out  with  the  Russian  Minister  Stoeckel 
long  before,  had  bought  or  built  a  new  house.  Congress  had  met.  Two 
or  three  months  remained  to  the  old  administration,  but  all  interest 
centered  in  the  new  one.  The  town  began  to  swarm  with  office-seekers, 
among  whom  a  young  writer  was  lost.  He  drifted  among  them,  unnoticed, 
glad  to  learn  his  work  under  cover  of  the  confusion.  He  never  aspired 
to  become  a  regular  reporter ;  he  knew  he  should  fail  in  trying  a 
career  so  ambitious  and  energetic ;  but  he  picked  up  friends  on  the 
press,  —  Nordhoff,  Murat  Halsted,  Henry  Watterson,  Sam  Bowles, — all 
reformers,  and  all  mixed  and  jumbled  together  in  a  tidal  wave  of  expec 
tation,  waiting  for  General  Grant  to  give  orders.  No  one  seemed  to 
know  much  about  it.  Even  senators  had  nothing  to  say.  One  could 
only  make  notes  and  study  finance. 

In  waiting,  he  amused  himself  as  he  could.  In  the  amusements  of 
Washington,  education  had  no  part,  but  the  simplicity  of  the  amusements 
proved  the  simplicity  of  everything  else,  ambitions,  interests,  thoughts 

221 


222  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

and  knowledge.  Proverbially  Washington  was  a  poor  place  for  education, 
and  of  course  young  diplomates  avoided  or  disliked  it,  but,  as  a  rule, 
diplomates  disliked  every  place  except  Paris,  and  the  world  contained  only 
one  Paris.  They  abused  London  more  violently  than  Washington ;  they 
praised  no  post  under  the  sun ;  and  they  were  merely  describing  three- 
fourths  of  their  stations  when  they  complained  that  there  were  no 
theatres,  no  restaurants,  no  monde,  no  demi-monde,  no  drives,  no  splendor, 
and,  as  Mme  de  Struve  used  to  say,  no  grandezza.  This  was  all  true ; 
Washington  was  a  mere  political  camp,  as  transient  and  temporary  as 
a  camp-meeting  for  religious  revival,  but  the  diplomates  had  least  reason 
to  complain,  since  they  were  more  sought  for  there  than  they  would  ever 
be  elsewhere.  For  young  men  Washington  was  in  one  way  paradise, 
since  they  were  few,  and  greatly  in  demand.  After  watching  the  abject 
unimportance  of  the  young  diplomate  in  London  society,  Adams  found 
himself  a  young  duke  in  Washington.  He  had  ten  years  of  youth  to 
make  up,  and  a  ravenous  appetite.  Washington  was  the  easiest  society 
he  had  ever  seen,  and  even  the  Bostonian  became  simple,  good-natured, 
almost  genial,  in  the  softness  of  a  Washington  spring.  Society  went  on 
excellently  well  without  houses,  or  carriages,  or  jewels,  or  toilettes,  or 
pavements,  or  shops,  or  grandezza  of  any  sort ;  and  the  market  was 
excellent  as  well  as  cheap.  One  could  not  stay  there  a  month  with 
out  loving  the  shabby  town.  Even  the  Washington  girl,  who  was  neither 
rich  nor  well-dressed  nor  well-educated  nor  clever,  had  singular  charm, 
and  used  it.  According  to  Mr.  Adams  the  father,  this  charm  dated 
back  as  far  as  Monroe's  administration,  to  his  personal  knowledge. 

Therefore,  behind  all  the  processes  of  political  or  financial  or  news 
paper  training,  the  social  side  of  Washington  was  to  be  taken  for  granted 
as  three-fourths  of  existence.  Its  details  matter  nothing.  Life  ceased 
to  be  strenuous,  and  the  victim  thanked  God  for  it.  Politics  and  reform 
became  the  detail,  and  waltzing  the  profession.  Adams  was  not  alone. 
Senator  Sumner  had  as  private  secretary  a  young  man  named  Moorfield 
Storey,  who  became  a  dangerous  example  of  frivolity.  The  new  Attorney 
General,  E.  R.  Hoar,  brought  with  him  from  Concord  a  son,  Sam  Hoar, 
whose  example  rivalled  that  of  Storey.  Another  impenitent  was  named 
Dewey,  a  young  naval  officer.  Adams  came  far  down  in  the  list.  He 
wished  he  had  been  higher.  He  could  have  spared  a  world  of  super 
annuated  history,  science  or  politics,  to  have  reversed  better  in  waltzing. 


PRESIDENT  GRANT  223 

He  had  no  adequate  notion  how  little  he  knew,  especially  of  women, 
and  Washington  offered  no  standard  of  comparison.  All  were  profoundly 
ignorant  together,  and  as  indifferent  as  children  to  education.  No  one 
needed  knowledge.  Washington  was  happier  without  style.  Certainly 
Adams  was  happier  without  it;  happier  than  he  had  ever  been  before; 
happier  than  anyone  in  the  harsh  world  of  strenuousness  could  dream 
of.  This  must  be  taken  as  background  for  such  little  education  as 
he  gained ;  but  the  life  belonged  to  the  eighteenth  century,  and  in  no 
way  concerned  education  for  the  twentieth. 

In  such  an  atmosphere,  one  made  no  great  pretence  of  hard  work. 
If  the  world  wants  hard  work,  the  world  must  pay  for  it ;  and,  if  it  will 
not  pay,  it  has  no  fault  to  find  with  the  worker.  Thus  far,  no  one  had 
made  a  suggestion  of  pay  for  any  work  that  Adams  had  done  or  could 
do ;  if  he  worked  at  all,  it  was  for  social  consideration,  and  social 
pleasure  was  his  pay.  For  this  he  was  willing  to  go  on  working,  as  an 
artist  goes  on  painting  when  no  one  buys  his  pictures.  Artists  have 
done  it  from  the  beginning  of  time,  and  will  do  it  after  time  has  expired, 
since  they  cannot  help  themselves,  and  they  find  their  return  in  the 
pride  of  their  social  superiority  as  they  feel  it.  Society  commonly  abets 
them  and  encourages  their  attitude  of  contempt.  The  society  of  Washington 
was  too  simple  and  southern  as  yet,  to  feel  anarchistic  longings,  and  it 
never  read  or  saw  what  artists  produced  elsewhere,  but  it  good-naturedly 
abetted  them  when  it  had  the  chance,  and  respected  itself  the  more  for 
the  frailty.  Adams  found  even  the  government  at  his  service,  and  every 
one  willing  to  answer  his  questions.  He  worked,  after  a  fashion ;  not 
very  hard,  but  as  much  as  the  government  would  have  required  of  him 
for  nine  hundred  dollars  a  year ;  and  his  work  defied  frivolity.  He  got 
more  pleasure  from  writing  than  the  world  ever  got  from  reading  him, 
for  his  work  was  not  amusing,  nor  was  he.  One  must  not  try  to  amuse 
money-lenders  or  investors,  and  this  was  the  class  to  which  he  began  by 
appealing.  He  gave  three  months  to  an  article  on  the  finances  of  the 
United  States,  just  then  a  subject  greatly  needing  treatment;  and  when 
he  had  finished  it,  he  sent  it  to  London  to  his  friend  Henry  Keeve,  the 
ponderous  editor  of  the  Edinburgh  Review.  Reeve  probably  thought  it 
good ;  at  all  events,  he  said  so ;  and  he  printed  it  in  April.  Of  course 
it  was  reprinted  in  America,  but  in  England  such  articles  were  still 
anonymous,  and  the  author  remained  unknown. 


224  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

The  author  was  not  then  asking  for  advertisement,  and  made  no  claim 
for  credit.  His  object  was  literary.  He  wanted  to  win  a  place  on  the 
staff  of  the  Edinburgh  Review,  under  the  vast  shadow  of  Lord  Macaulay ; 
and,  to  a  young  American  in  1868,  such  rank  seemed  colossal,  —  the 
highest  in  the  literary  world,  —  as  it  had  been  only  five-and-twenty  years 
before.  Time  and  tide  had  flowed  since  then,  but  the  position  still 
flattered  vanity,  though  it  brought  no  other  flattery  or  reward  except 
the  regular  thirty  pounds  of  pay,  —  fifty  dollars  a  month,  measured  in 
time  and  labor. 

The  Edinburgh  article  finished,  he  set  himself  to  work  on  a  scheme 
for  the  North  American  Review.  In  England,  Lord  Robert  Cecil  had 
invented  for  the  London  Quarterly  an  annual  review  of  politics  which 
he  called  the  Session.  Adams  stole  the  idea  and  the  name; — he  thought 
he  had  been  enough  in  Lord  Robert's  house,  in  days  of  his  struggle  with 
adversity,  to  excuse  the  theft — and  began  what  he  meant  for  a  permanent 
series  of  annual  political  reviews  which  he  hoped  to  make,  in  time,  a 
political  authority.  With  his  sources  of  information,  and  his  social 
intimacies  at  Washington,  he  could  not  help  saying  something  that  would 
command  attention.  He  had  the  field  to  himself,  and  he  meant  to  give 
himself  a  free  hand,  as  he  went  on.  Whether  the  newspapers  liked  it 
or  not,  they  would  have  to  reckon  with  him ;  for  such  a  power,  once 
established,  was  more  effective  than  all  the  speeches  in  Congress  or  reports 
to  the  President  that  could  be  crammed  into  the  government  presses. 

The  first  of  these  Sessions  appeared  in  April,  but  it  could  not  be 
condensed  into  a  single  article,  and  had  to  be  supplemented  in  October 
by  another  which  bore  the  title  of  Civil  Service  Reform,  and  was  really 
a  part  of  the  same  review.  A  good  deal  of  authentic  history  slipped  into 
these  papers.  Whether  anyone  except  his  press-associates  ever  read  them, 
he  never  knew  and  never  greatly  cared.  The  difference  is  slight,  to  the 
influence  of  an  author,  whether  he  is  read  by  five  hundred  readers,  or 
by  five  hundred  thousand ;  if  he  can  select  the  five  hundred,  he  reaches 
the  five  hundred  thousand.  The  fateful  year  1870  was  near  at  hand, 
which  was  to  mark  the  close  of  the  literary  epoch,  when  quarterlies  gave 
way  to  monthlies :  letter-press  to  illustration ;  volumes  to  pages.  The 
outburst  was  brilliant.  Bret  Harte  led,  and  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 
followed.  Guy  de  Maupassant  and  Rudyard  Kipling  brought  up  the  rear, 


PRESIDENT    GRANT  225 

and  dazzled  the  world.  As  usual,  Adams  found  himself  fifty  years  behind 
his  time,  but  a  number  of  belated  wanderers  kept  him  company,  and  they 
produced  on  each  other  the  effect  or  illusion  of  a  public  opinion.  They 
straggled  apart,  at  longer  and  longer  intervals,  through  the  procession, 
but  they  were  still  within  hearing  distance  of  each  other.  The  drift  was 
still  superficially  conservative.  Just  as  the  Church  spoke  with  apparent 
authority,  so  the  quarterlies  laid  down  an  apparent  law,  and  no  one  could 
surely  say  where  the  real  authority,  or  the  real  law,  lay.  Science  did  not 
know.  Truths  ci  priori  held  their  own  against  truths  purely  relative. 
According  to  Lowell,  Right  was  forever  on  the  Scaffold,  Wrong  was 
forever  on  the  Throne ;  and  most  people  still  thought  they  believed  it. 
Adams  was  not  the  only  relic  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  he  could 
still  depend  on  a  certain  number  of  listeners, — mostly  respectable,  and 
some  rich. 

Want  of  audience  did  not  trouble  him ;  he  was  well  enough  off  in 
that  respect,  and  would  have  succeeded  in  all  his  calculations  if  this  had 
been  his  only  hazard.  Where  he  broke  down  was  at  a  point  where  he 
always  suffered  wreck  and  where  nine  adventurers  out  of  ten  make  their 
errors.  One  may  be  more  or  less  certain  of  organised  forces ;  one  can 
never  be  certain  of  men.  He  belonged  to  the  eighteenth  century,  and 
the  eighteenth  century  upset  all  his  plans.  For  the  moment,  America 
was  more  eighteenth  century  than  himself;  it  reverted  to  the  stone-age. 

As  education, — of  a  certain  sort, — the  story  had  probably  a  certain 
value,  though  he  could  never  see  it.  One  seldom  can  see  much  educa 
tion  in  the  buck  of  a  broncho ;  even  less  in  the  kick  of  a  mule.  The 
lesson  it  teaches  is  only  that  of  getting  out  of  the  animal's  way.  This 
was  the  lesson  that  Henry  Adams  had  learned  over  and  over  again  in 
politics  since  1860. 

At  least  four-fifths  of  the  American  people, — Adams  among  the 
rest, — had  united  in  the  election  of  General  Grant  to  the  Presidency, 
and  probably  had  been  more  or  less  affected  in  their  choice  by  the 
parallel  they  felt  between  Grant  and  Washington.  Nothing  could  be 
more  obvious.  Grant  represented  order.  He  was  a  great  soldier,  and  the 
soldier  always  represented  order.  He  might  be  as  partisan  as  he  pleased, 
but  a  general  who  had  organised  and  commanded  half  a  million  or  a 
million  men  in  the  field,  must  know  how  to  administer.  Even  Wash- 
15 


226  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

ington,  who  was,  in  education  and  experience,  a  mere  cave-dweller,  had 
known  how  to  organise  a  government,  and  had  found  Jeffersons  and 
Hamiltons  to  organise  his  departments.  The  task  of  bringing  the 
government  back  to  regular  practices,  and  of  restoring  moral  and 
mechanical  order  to  administration,  was  not  very  difficult ;  it  was  ready 
to  do  itself,  with  a  little  encouragement.  No  doubt  the  confusion, 
especially  in  the  old  slave  States  and  in  the  currency,  was  considerable, 
but  the  general  disposition  was  good,  and  everyone  had  echoed  the 
famous  phrase : — Let  us  have  Peace. 

Adams  was  young  and  easily  deceived,  in  spite  of  his  diplomatic 
adventures,  but  even  at  twice  his  age  he  could  not  see  that  this  reliance 
on  Grant  was  unreasonable.  Had  Grant  been  a  Congressman  one  would 
have  been  on  one's  guard,  for  one  knew  the  type.  One  never  expected 
from  a  Congressman  more  than  good  intentions  and  public  spirit. 
Newspaper  men  as  a  rule  had  no  great  respect  for  the  lower  House ; 
senators  had  less ;  and  cabinet-officers  had  none  at  all.  Indeed  one  day 
when  Adams  was  pleading  with  a  cabinet-officer  for  patience  and  tact 
in  dealing  with  representatives,  the  Secretary  impatiently  broke  out : — 
"  You  can't  use  tact  with  a  Congressman !  A  Congressman  is  a  hog ! 
You  must  take  a  stick  and  hit  him  on  the  snout ! "  Adams  knew  far 
too  little,  compared  with  the  Secretary,  to  contradict  him,  though  he 
thought  the  phrase  somewhat  harsh  even  as  applied  to  the  average 
Congressman  of  1869 ; — he  saw  little  or  nothing  of  later  ones ; — but  he 
knew  a  shorter  way  of  silencing  criticism.  He  had  but  to  ask : — "  If  a 
Congressman  is  a  hog,  what  is  a  Senator?"  This  innocent  question, 
put  in  a  candid  spirit,  petrified  any  executive  officer  that  ever  sat  a 
week  in  his  office.  Even  Adams  admitted  that  Senators  passed  belief. 
The  comic  side  of  their  egotism  partly  disguised  its  extravagance,  but 
faction  had  gone  so  far  under  Andrew  Johnson  that  at  times  the  whole 
Senate  seemed  to  catch  hysterics  of  nervous  bucking  without  apparent 
reason.  Great  leaders,  like  Sumner  and  Conkling,  could  not  be 
burlesqued ;  they  were  more  grotesque  than  ridicule  could  make  them ; 
even  Grant,  who  rarely  sparkled  in  epigram,  became  witty  on  their 
account ;  but  their  egotism  and  factiousness  were  no  laughing  matter. 
They  did  permanent  and  terrible  mischief,  as  Garfield  and  Elaine  and 
even  McKinley  and  John  Hay  were  to  feel.  The  most  troublesome 


PRESIDENT    GRANT  227 

task  of  a  reform  President  was  that  of  bringing  the  Senate  back  to 
decency. 

Therefore  no  one,  and  Henry  Adams  less  than  most,  felt  hope  that 
any  President  chosen  from  the  ranks  of  politics  or  politicians  would 
raise  the  character  of  government ;  and  by  instinct  if  not  by  reason,  all 
the  world  united  on  Grant.  The  Senate  understood  what  the  world 
expected,  and  waited  in  silence  -for  a  struggle  with  Grant  more  serious 
than  that  with  Andrew  Johnson.  Newspaper-men  were  alive  with  eager 
ness  to  support  the  President  against  the  Senate.  The  newspaper-man 
is,  more  than  most  men,  a  double  personality ;  and  his  person  feels  best 
satisfied  in  its  double  instincts  when  writing  in  one  sense  and  thinking 
in  another.  All  newspaper-men,  whatever  they  wrote,  felt  alike  about 
the  Senate.  Adams  floated  with  the  stream.  He  was  eager  to  join  in 
the  fight  which  he  foresaw  as  sooner  or  later  inevitable.  Pie  meant  to 
support  the  Executive  in  attacking  the  Senate  and  taking  away  its  two- 
thirds  vote  and  power  of  confirmation,  nor  did  he  much  care  how  it 
should  be  done,  for  he  thought  it  safer  to  effect  the  revolution  in  1870 
than  to  wait  till  1920. 

With  this  thought  in  his  mind,  he  went  to  the  Capitol  to  hear  the 
names  announced  which  should  reveal  the  carefully  guarded  secret  of 
Grant's  cabinet.  To  the  end  of  his  life,  he  wondered  at  the  suddenness 
of  the  revolution  which  actually,  within  five  minutes,  changed  his 
intended  future  into  an  absurdity  so  laughable  as  to  make  him  ashamed 
of  it.  He  was  to  hear  a  long  list  of  cabinet  announcements  not  much 
weaker  or  more  futile  than  that  of  Grant,  and  none  of  them  made  him 
blush,  while  Grant's  nominations  had  the  singular  effect  of  making  the 
hearer  ashamed,  not  so  much  of  Grant,  as  of  himself.  He  had  made 
another  total  misconception  of  life, — another  inconceivable  false  start. 
Yet,  unlikely  as  it  seemed,  he  had  missed  his  motive  narrowly,  and 
his  intention  had  been  more  than  sound,  for  the  senators  made  no  secret 
of  saying  with  senatorial  frankness  that  Grant's  nominations  betrayed 
his  intent  as  plainly  as  they  betrayed  his  incompetence.  A  great 
soldier  might  be  a  baby  politician. 

Adams  left  the  Capitol,  much  in  the  same  misty  mental  condition 
that  he  recalled  as  marking  his  railway  journey  to  London  on  May  13, 
1861 ;  he  felt  in  himself  what  Gladstone  bewailed  so  sadly,  "  the 


228  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

incapacity  of  viewing  things  all  round."  He  knew,  without  absolutely 
saying  it,  that  Grant  had  cut  short  the  life  which  Adams  had  laid 
out  for  himself  in  the  future.  After  such  a  miscarriage,  no  thought  of 
effectual  reform  could  revive  for  at  least  one  generation,  and  he  had  no 
fancy  for  ineffectual  politics.  What  course  could  he  sail  next  ?  He 
had  tried  so  many,  and  society  had  barred  them  all !  For  the  moment, 
he  saw  no  hope  but  in  following  the  stream  on  which  he  had  launched 
himself.  The  new  Cabinet,  as  individuals,  were  not  hostile.  Subse 
quently  Grant  made  changes  in  the  list  which  were  mostly  welcome 
to  a  Bostonian, — or  should  have  been, — although  fatal  to  Adams.  The 
name  of  Hamilton  Fish,  as  Secretary  of  State,  suggested  extreme  conser 
vatism  and  probable  deference  to  Summer.  The  name  of  George  S. 
Boutwell,  as  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  suggested  only  a  somewhat 
lugubrious  joke ;  Mr.  Boutwell  could  be  described  only  as  the  opposite 
of  Mr.  McCulloch,  and  meant  inertia ;  or,  in  plain  words,  total  extinction 
for  anyone  resembling  Henry  Adams.  On  the  other  hand,  the  name 
of  Jacob  D.  Cox  as  Secretary  of  the  Interior  suggested  help  and 
comfort ;  while  that  of  Judge  Hoar  as  Attorney-General  promised 
friendship.  On  the  whole,  the  personal  outlook,  merely  for  literary 
purposes,  seemed  fairly  cheerful,  and  the  political  outlook,  though  hazy, 
still  depended  on  Grant  himself.  No  one  doubted  that  Grant's  intention 
had  been  one  of  reform;  that  his  aim  had  been  to  place  his  administra 
tion  above  politics ;  and  until  he  should  actually  drive  his  supporters 
away,  one  might  hope  to  support  him.  One's  little  lantern  must  therefore 
be  turned  on  Grant.  One  seemed  to  know  him  so  well,  and  really 
knew  so  little. 

By  chance  it  happened  that  Adam  Badeau  took  the  lower  suite  of 
rooms  at  Dohna's,  and,  as  it  was  convenient  to  have  one  table,  the  two 
men  dined  together  and  became  intimate.  Badeau  was  exceedingly 
social,  though  not  in  appearance  imposing.  He  was  stout ;  his  face  was 
red,  and  his  habits  were  regularly  irregular ;  but  he  was  very  intelligent, 
a  good  newspaper-man,  and  an  excellent  military  historian.  His  life 
of  Grant  was  no  ordinary  book.  Unlike  most  newspaper-men,  he  was 
a  friendly  critic  of  Grant,  as  suited  an  officer  who  had  been  on  the 
General's  staff.  As  a  rule,  the  newspaper  correspondents  in  Washington 
were  unfriendly,  and  the  lobby  sceptical.  From  that  side  one  heard 


PRESIDENT  GRANT  229 

tales  that  made  one's  hair  stand  on  end,  and  the  old  West  Point  army- 
officers  were  no  more  flattering.  All  described  him  as  vicious,  narrow, 
dull  and  vindictive.  Badeau,  who  had  come  to  Washington  for  a 
consulate  which  was  slow  to  reach  him,  resorted  more  or  less  to  whiskey 
for  encouragement,  and  became  irritable,  besides  being  loquacious.  He 
talked  much  about  Grant,  and  showed  a  certain  artistic  feeling  for 
analysis  of  character,  as  a  true  literary  critic  would  naturally  do. 
Loyal  to  Grant,  and  still  more  so  to  Mrs.  Grant,  who  acted  as  his  patron 
ess,  he  said  nothing,  even  when  far  gone,  that  was  offensive  about  either, 
but  he  held  that  no  one  except  himself  and  Rawlins  understood  the 
General.  To  him,  Grant  appeared  as  an  intermittent  energy,  immensely 
powerful  when  awake,  but  passive  and  plastic  in  repose.  He  said  that 
neither  he  nor  the  rest  of  the  staff  knew  why  Grant  succeeded ;  they 
believed  in  him  because  of  his  success.  For  stretches  of  time,  his  mind 
seemed  torpid.  Rawlins  and  the  others  would  systematically  talk  their 
ideas  into  it,  for  weeks,  not  directly  but  by  discussion  among  themselves, 
in  his  presence.  In  the  end,  he  would  announce  the  idea  as  his  own, 
without  seeming  conscious  of  the  discussion  ;  and  would  give  the  orders 
to  carry  it  out  with  all  the  energy  that  belonged  to  his  nature.  They 
could  never  measure  his  character  or  be  sure  when  he  would  act. 
They  could  never  follow  a  mental  process  in  his  thought.  They  were 
not  sure  that  he  did  think. 

In  all  this,  Adams  took  deep  interest,  for  although  he  was  not,  like 
Badeau,  waiting  for  Mrs.  Grant's  power  of  suggestion  to  act  on  the 
General's  mind  in  order  to  germinate  in  a  consulate  or  a  legation,  his 
portrait  gallery  of  great  men  was  becoming  large,  and  it  amused  him  to 
add  an  authentic  likeness  of  the  greatest  general  the  world  had  seen 
since  Napoleon.  Badeau's  analysis  was  rather  delicate ;  infinitely  superior 
to  that  of  Sam  Ward  or  Charles  Nordhoff. 

Badeau  took  Adams  to  the  White  House  one  evening  and  introduced 
him  to  the  President  and  Mrs.  Grant.  First  and  last,  he  saw  a  dozen 
Presidents  at  the  White  House,  and  the  most  famous  were  by  no  means 
the  most  agreeable,  but  he  found  Grant  the  most  curious  object  of  study 
among  them  all.  About  no  one  did  opinions  differ  so  widely.  Adams 
had  no  opinion,  or  occasion  to  make  one.  A  single  word  with  Grant 
satisfied  him  that,  for  his  own  good,  the  fewer  words  he  risked,  the  better. 


230  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

Thus  far  in  life  lie  had  met  with  but  one  man  of  the  same  intellectual 
or  unintellectual  type, — Garibaldi.  Of  the  two,  Garibaldi  seemed  to  him 
a  trifle  the  more  intellectual,  but,  in  both,  the  intellect  counted  for 
nothing ; — only  the  energy  counted.  The  type  was  pre-intellectual, 
archaic,  and  would  have  seemed  so  even  to  the  cave-dwellers.  Adam, 
according  to  legend,  was  such  a  man. 

In  time  one  came  to  recognise  the  type  in  other  men,  with  differ 
ences  and  variations,  as  normal ; — men  whose  energies  were  the  greater, 
the  less  they  wasted  on  thought ;  men  who  sprang  from  the  soil  to 
power ;  apt  to  be  distrustful  of  themselves  and  of  others ;  shy ;  jealous ; 
sometimes  vindictive ;  more  or  less  dull  in  outward  appearance ;  always 
needing  stimulants,  but  for  whom  action  was  the  highest  stimulant, — the 
instinct  of  fight.  Such  men  were  forces  of  nature,  energies  of  the  prime,- 
like  the  Pteraspis,  but  they  made  short  work  of  scholars.  They  had  com 
manded  thousands  of  such  and  saw  no  more  in  them  than  in  others.  The 
fact  was  certain ;  it  crushed  argument  and  intellect  at  once. 

Adams  did  not  feel  Grant  as  a  hostile  force ;  like  Badeau  he  saw 
only  an  uncertain  one.  When  in  action  he  was  superb  and  safe  to  follow ; 
only  when  torpid  he  was  dangerous.  To  deal  with  him  one  must  stand 
near,  like  Rawlins,  and  practice  more  or  less  sympathetic  habits.  Simple- 
minded  beyond  the  experience  of  Wall  Street  or  State  Street,  he  resorted, 
like  most  men  of  the  same  intellectual  calibre,  to  commonplaces  when  at 
a  loss  for  expression:  —  "Let  us  have  peace!"  or  "The  best  way  to 
treat  a  bad  law  is  to  execute  it ; "  or  a  score  of  such  reversible  sentences 
generally  to  be  guaged  by  their  sententiousness ;  but  sometimes  he  made  one 
doubt  his  good  faith ;  as  when  he  seriously  remarked  to  a  particularly  bright 
young  woman  that  Venice  would  be  a  fine  city  if  it  were  drained.  In 
Mark  Twain,  this  suggestion  would  have  taken  rank  among  his  best 
witticisms ;  in  Grant  it  was  a  measure  of  simplicity  not  singular. 
Robert  E.  Lee  betrayed  the  same  intellectual  common-place,  in  a  Virginian 
form,  not  to  the  same  degree  but  quite  distinctly  enough  for  one  who 
knew  the  American.  What  worried  Adams  was  not  the  common-place ; 
it  was,  as  usual,  his  own  education.  Grant  fretted  and  irritated  him, 
like  the  Terebratula,  as  a  defiance  of  first  principles.  He  had  no  right 
to  exist.  He  should  have  been  extinct  for  ages.  The  idea  that,  as  society 
grew  older,  it  grew  one-sided,  upset  evolution,  and  made  of  education  a 


PRESIDENT  GRANT  231 

fraud.  That,  two  thousand  years  after  Alexander  the  Great  and  Julius 
Caesar,  a  man  like  Grant  should  be  called — and  should  actually  and 
truly  be — the  highest  product  of  the  most  advanced  evolution,  made 
evolution  ludicrous.  One  must  be  as  common-place  as  Grant's  own 
common-places  to  maintain  such  an  absurdity.  The  progress  of  evolu 
tion  from  President  Washington  to  President  Grant,  was  alone  evidence 
enough  to  upset  Darwin. 

Education  became  more  perplexing  at  every  phase.  No  theory  was 
worth  the  pen  that  wrote  it.  America  had  no  use  for  Adams  because 
he  was  eighteenth-century,  and  yet  it  worshipped  Grant  because  he  was 
archaic  and  should  have  lived  in  a  cave  and  worn  skins.  Darwinists 
ought  to  conclude  that  America  was  reverting  to  the  stone-age,  but 
the  theory  of  reversion  was  more  absurd  than  that  of  evolution.  Grant's 
administration  reverted  to  nothing.  One  could  not  catch  a  trait  of  the 
past,  still  less  of  the  future.  It  was  not  even  sensibly  American.  Not 
an  official  in  it,  except  perhaps  Rawlins  whom  Adams  never  met,  and 
who  died  in  September,  suggested  an  American  idea. 

Yet  this  administration,  which  upset  Adams's  whole  life,  was  not 
unfriendly ;  it  was  made  up  largely  of  friends.  Secretary  Fish  was 
almost  kind ;  he  kept  the  tradition  of  New  York  social  values ;  he  was 
human  and  took  no  pleasure  in  giving  pain.  Adams  felt  no  prejudice 
whatever  in  his  favor,  and  he  had  nothing  in  mind  or  person  to  attract 
regard ;  his  social  gifts  were  not  remarkable ;  he  was  not  in  the  least 
magnetic ;  he  was  far  from  young ;  but  he  won  confidence  from  the 
start  and  remained  a  friend  to  the  finish.  As  far  as  concerned  Mr.  Fish 
one  felt  rather  happily  suited,  and  one  was  still  better  off  in  the  Interior 
Department  with  J.  D.  Cox.  Indeed,  if  Cox  had  been  in  the  Treasury 
and  Boutwell  in  the  Interior,  one  would  have  been  quite  satisfied  as 
far  as  personal  relations  went,  while,  in  the  Attorney-General's  Office, 
Judge  Hoar  seemed  to  fill  every  possible  ideal,  both  personal  and  political. 

The  difficulty  was  not  the  want  of  friends,  and  had  the  whole 
government  been  filled  with  them,  it  would  have  helped  little  without  the 
President  and  the  Treasury.  Grant  avowed  from  the  start  a  policy 
of  drift ;  and  a  policy  of  drift  attaches  only  barnacles.  At  thirty,  one 
has  no  interest  in  becoming  a  barnacle,  but  even  in  that  character  Henry 
Adams  would  have  been  ill  seen.  His  friends  were  reformers,  critics, 


232  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

doubtful  in  party  allegiance,  and  he  was  himself  an  object  of  suspicion. 
Grant  had  no  objects,  wanted  no  help,  wished  for  no  champions.  The 
Executive  asked  only  to  be  let  alone.  This  was  his  meaning  when 
he  said  : — "  Let  us  have  Peace  !  " 

No  one  wanted  to  go  into  opposition.  As  for  Adams,  all  his  hopes 
of  success  in  life  turned  on  his  finding  an  administration  to  support.  He 
knew  well  enough  the  rules  of  self-interest.  He  was  for  sale.  He 
wanted  to  be  bought.  His  price  was  excessively  cheap,  for  he  did  not 
even  ask  an  office,  and  had  his  eye,  not  on  the  government,  but  on  New 
York.  All  he  wanted  was  something  to  support ;  something  that  would 
let  itself  be  supported.  Luck  went  dead  against  him.  For  once,  he 
was  fifty  years  in  advance  of  his  time. 


CHAPTEK    XVIII 

1869-1870 

The  old  New  Englander  was  apt  to  be  a  solitary  animal,  but  the 
young  New  Englander  was  sometimes  human.  Judge  Hoar  brought  his 
son  Sam  to  Washington,  and  Sam  Hoar  loved  largely  and  well.  He 
taught  Adams  the  charm  of  Washington  spring.  Education  for  education, 
none  ever  compared  with  the  delight  of  this.  The  Potomac  and  its 
tributaries  squandered  beauty.  Rock  Creek  was  as  wild  as  the  Rocky 
Mountains.  Here  and  there  a  negro  log-cabin  alone  disturbed  the  dog 
wood  and  the  judas-tree,  the  azalea  and  the  laurel.  The  tulip  and  the 
chestnut  gave  no  sense  of  struggle  against  a  stingy  nature.  The  soft,  full 
outlines  of  the  landscape  carried  no  hidden  horror  of  glaciers  in  its 
bosom.  The  brooding  heat  of  the  profligate  vegetation ;  the  cool  charm 
of  the  running  water ;  the  terrific  splendor  of  the  June  thunder-gust  in 
the  deep  and  solitary  woods,  were  all  sensual,  animal,  elemental.  No 
European  spring  had  shown  him  the  same  intermixture  of  delicate  grace 
and  passionate  depravity  that  marked  the  Maryland  May.  He  loved  it 
too  much,  as  though  it  were  Greek  and  half  human.  He  could  not  leave 
it,  but  loitered  on  into  July,  falling  into  the  southern  ways  of  the  sum 
mer  village  about  La  Fayette  Square,  as  one  whose  rights  of  inheritance 
could  not  be  questioned.  Few  Americans  were  so  poor  as  to  question  them. 

In  spite  of  the  fatal  deception — or  undeception — about  Grant's 
political  character,  Adams's  first  winter  in  Washington  had  so  much 
amused  him  that  he  had  not  a  thought  of  change.  He  loved  it  too 
much  to  question  its  value.  What  did  he  know  about  its  value,  or  what 
did  anyone  know  ?  His  father  knew  more  about  it  than  anyone  else  in 
Boston,  and  he  was  amused  to  find  that  his  father,  whose  recollections 

233 


234  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

went  back  to  1820,  betrayed  for  Washington  much  the  same  sentimental 
weakness,  and  described  the  society  about  President  Monroe  much  as  his 
son  felt  the  society  about  President  Johnson.  He  feared  its  effect  on 
young  men,  with  some  justice,  since  it  had  been  fatal  to  two  of  his 
brothers ;  but  he  understood  the  charm,  and  he  knew  that  a  life  in 
Quincy  or  Boston  was  not  likely  to  deaden  it. 

Henry  was  in  a  savage  humor  on  the  subject  of  Boston.  He  saw 
Boutwells  at  every  counter.  He  found  a  personal  grief  in  every  tree. 
Fifteen  or  twenty  years  afterwards,  Clarence  King  used  to  amuse  him 
by  mourning  over  the  narrow  escape  that  nature  had  made  in  attaining 
perfection.  Except  for  two  mistakes,  the  earth  would  have  been  a 
success.  One  of  these  errors  was  the  inclination  of  the  ecliptic ;  the 
other  was  the  differentiation  of  the  sexes,  and  the  saddest  thought  about  the 
last  was  that  it  should  have  been  so  modern.  Adams,  in  his  splenetic 
temper,  held  that  both  these  unnecessary  evils  had  wreaked  their  worst 
on  Boston.  The  climate  made  eternal  war  on  society,  and  sex  was  a 
species  of  crime.  The  ecliptic  had  inclined  itself  beyond  recovery  till 
life  was  as  thin  as  the  elm-trees.  Of  course  he  was  in  the  wrong.  The 
thinness  was  in  himself,  not  in  Boston ;  but  this  is  a  story  of  education, 
and  Adams  was  struggling  to  '  shape  himself  to  his  time.  Boston  was 
trying  to  do  the  same  thing.  Everywhere  except  in  Washington  Ameri 
cans  were  toiling  for  the  same  object.  Everyone  complained  of 
surroundings,  except  where,  as  at  Washington,  there  were  no  surroundings 
to  complain  of.  Boston  kept  its  head  better  than  its  neighbors  did, 
and  very  little  time  was  needed  to  prove  it,  even  to  Adams's  confusion. 

Before  he  got  back  to  Quincy,  the  summer  was  already  half  over, 
and  in  another  six  weeks  the  effects  of  President  Grant's  character 
showed  themselves.  They  were  startling — astounding — terrifying.  The 
mystery  that  shrouded  the  famous,  classical  attempt  of  Jay  Gould  to 
corner  gold  in  September,  1869,  has  never  been  cleared  up, — at  least  so 
far  as  to  make  it  intelligible  to  Adams.  Gould  was  led,  by  the  change 
at  Washington,  into  the  belief  that  he  could  safely  corner  gold  without 
interference  from  the  government.  He  took  a  number  of  precautions, 
which  he  admitted ;  and  he  spent  a  large  sum  of  money,  as  he  also 
testified,  to  obtain  assurances  which  were  not  sufficient  to  have  satisfied 
so  astute  a  gambler ;  yet  he  made  the  venture.  Any  criminal  lawyer 


FREE   FIGHT  235 

must  have  begun  investigation  by  insisting,  rigorously,  that  no  such  man, 
in  such  a  position,  could  be  permitted  to  plead  that  he  had  taken,  and 
pursued,  such  a  course,  without  assurances  which  did  satisfy  him.  The 
plea  was  professionally  inadmissible. 

This  meant  that  any  criminal  lawyer  would  have  been  bound  to 
start  an  investigation  by  insisting  that  Gould  had  assurances  from  the 
White  House  or  the  Treasury,  since  none  other  could  have  satisfied  him. 
To  young  men  wasting  their  summer  at  Quincy  for  want  of  some  one 
to  hire  their  services  at  three  dollars  a  day,  such  a  dramatic  scandal 
was  heaven-sent.  Charles  and  Henry  Adams  jumped  at  it  like  salmon 
at  a  fly,  with  as  much  voracity  as  Jay  Gould,  or  his  ame  damnee  Jim 
Fisk,  had  ever  shown  for  Erie ;  and  with  as  little  fear  of  consequences. 
They  risked  something ;  no  one  could  say  what ;  but  the  people  about 
the  Erie  office  were  not  regarded  as  lambs. 

The  unravelling  a  skein  so  tangled  as  that  of  the  Erie  Railway  was 
a  task  that  might  have  given  months  of  labor  to  the  most  efficient 
District  Attorney,  with  all  his  official  tools  to  work  with.  Charles  took 
the  Railway  history ;  Henry  took  the  so-called  Gold  Conspiracy ;  and 
they  went  to  New  York  to  work  it  up.  The  surface  was  in  full  view. 
They  had  no  trouble  in  Wall  Street,  and  they  paid  their  respects  in 
person  to  the  famous  Jim  Fisk  in  his  Opera  House  Palace ;  but  the 
New  York  side  of  the  story  helped  Henry  little.  He  needed  to 
penetrate  the  political  mystery,  and  for  this  purpose  he  had  to  wait  for 
Congress  to  meet.  At  first  he  feared  that  Congress  would  suppress  the 
scandal,  but  the  Congressional  Investigation  was  ordered,  and  took  place. 
He  soon  knew  all  that  was  to  be  known ;  the  material  for  his  essay 
was  furnished  by  the  government. 

Material  furnished  by  a  government  seldom  satisfies  critics  or  his 
torians,  for  it  lies  always  under  suspicion.  Here  was  a  mystery,  and  as 
usual,  the  chief  mystery  was  the  means  of  making  sure  that  any 
mystery  existed.  All  Adams's  great  friends, — Fish,  Cox,  Hoar,  Evarts, 
Sumner  and  their  surroundings, — were  precisely  the  persons  most  mystified. 
They  knew  less  than  Adams  did ;  they  sought  information,  and  frankly 
admitted  that  their  relations  with  the  White  House  and  the  Treasury 
were  not  confidential.  No  one  volunteered  advice.  No  one  offered 
suggestion.  One  got  no  light,  even  from  the  press,  although  press-agents 


236  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

expressed  in  private  the  most  damning  convictions  with  their  usual 
cynical  frankness.  The  Congressional  Committee  took  a  quantity  of 
evidence  which  it  dared  not  probe,  and  refused  to  analyse.  Although 
the  fault  lay  somewhere  on  the  administration,  and  could  lie  nowhere 
else,  the  trail  always  faded  and  died  out  at  the  point  where  any  member 
of  the  administration  became  visible.  Everyone  dreaded  to  press  inquiry. 
Adams  himself  feared  finding  out  too  much.  He  found  out  too  much 
already,  when  he  saw  in  evidence  that  Jay  Gould  had  actually  succeeded 
in  stretching  his  net  over  Grant's  closest  surroundings,  and  that  Bout- 
well's  incompetence  was  the  bottom  of  Gould's  calculation.  With  the 
conventional  air  of  assumed  confidence,  everyone  in  public  assured  every 
one  else  that  the  President  himself  was  the  savior  of  the  situation,  and 
in  private  assured  each  other  that  if  the  President  had  not  been  caught 
this  time,  he  was  sure  to  be  trapped  the  next,  for  the  ways  of  Wall  Street 
were  dark  and  double.  All  this  was  wildly  exciting  to  Adams.  That 
Grant  should  have  fallen,  within  six  months,  into  such  a  morass, — or  should 
have  let  Boutwell  drop  him  into  it, — rendered  the  outlook  for  the  next 
four  years, — probably  eight, — possibly  twelve, — mysterious,  or  frankly 
opaque,  to  a  young  man  who  had  hitched  his  wagon,  as  Emerson  told 
him,  to  the  star  of  reform.  The  country  might  outlive  it,  but  not  he. 
The  worst  scandals  of  the  eighteenth  century  were  relatively  harmless 
by  the  side  of  this,  which  smirched  executive,  judiciary,  banks,  corporate 
systems,  professions  and  people,  all  the  great  active  forces  of  society,  in 
one  dirty  cess-pool  of  vulgar  corruption.  Only  six  months  before,  this 
innocent  young  man  fresh  from  the  cynicism  of  European  diplomacy, 
had  expected  to  enter  an  honorable  career  in  the  press  as  the  champion 
and  confidant  of  a  new  Washington,  and  already  he  foresaw  a  life  of 
wasted  energy,  sweeping  the  stables  of  American  society  clean  of  the 
endless  corruption  which  his  second  Washington  was  quite  certain  to 
breed. 

By  vigorously  shutting  one's  eyes,  as  though  one  were  an  Assistant 
Secretary,  a  writer  for  the  press  might  ignore  the  Erie  scandal,  and  still 
help  his  friends  or  allies  in  the  government  who  were  doing  their  best 
to  give  it  an  air  of  decency ;  but  a  few  weeks  showed  that  the  Erie 
scandal  was  a  mere  incident,  a  rather  vulgar  Wall  Street  trap,  into 
which,  according  to  one's  point  of  view,  Grant  had  been  drawn  by  Jay 


FREE   FIGHT  237 

Gould,  or  Jay  Gould  had  been  misled  by  Grant.  One  could  hardly 
doubt  that  both  of  them  were  astonished  and  disgusted  by  the  result ; 
but  neither  Jay  Gould  nor  any  other  astute  American  mind — still  less 
the  complex  Jew,  —  could  ever  have  accustomed  itself  to  the  incredi 
ble  and  inexplicable  lapses  of  Grant's  intelligence ;  and  perhaps  on  the 
whole,  Gould  was  the  less  mischievous  victim,  if  victims  they  both  were. 
The  same  laxity  that  led  Gould  into  a  trap  which  might  easily  have 
become  the  penitentiary,  led  the  United  States  Senate,  the  Executive 
departments  and  the  Judiciary  into  confusion,  cross  purposes  and  ill- 
temper  that  would  have  been  scandalous  in  a  boarding-school  of  girls. 
For  satirists  or  comedians,  the  study  was  rich  and  endless,  and  they 
exploited  its  corners  with  happy  results,  but  a  young  man  fresh  from 
the  rustic  simplicity  of  London  noticed  with  horror  that  the  grossest 
satires  on  the  American  senator  and  politician  never  failed  to  excite  the 
laughter  and  applause  of  every  audience.  Rich  and  poor  joined  in 
throwing  contempt  on  their  own  representatives.  Society  laughed  a 
vacant  and  meaningless  derision  over  its  own  failure.  Nothing  remained 
for  a  young  man  without  position  or  power  except  to  laugh  too. 

Yet  the  spectacle  was  no  laughing  matter  to  him,  whatever  it  might 
be  to  the  public.  Society  is  immoral  and  immortal ;  it  can  afford  to 
commit  any  kind  of  folly,  and  indulge  in  any  sort  of  vice ;  it  cannot  be 
killed,  and  the  fragments  that  survive  can  always  laugh  at  the  dead ; 
but  a  young  man  has  only  one  chance,  and  brief  time  to  seize  it.  Anyone 
in  power  above  him  can  extinguish  the  chance.  He  is  horribly  at  the 
mercy  of  fools  and  cowards.  One  dull  administration  can  rapidly  drive 
out  every  active  subordinate.  At  Washington,  in  1869-70,  every  intelli 
gent  man  about  the  government  prepared  to  go.  The  people  would  have 
liked  to  go  too,  for  they  stood  helpless  before  the  chaos ;  some  laughed 
and  some  raved ;  all  were  disgusted ;  but  they  had  to  content  themselves 
by  turning  their  backs  and  going  to  work  harder  than  ever  on  their 
railroads  and  foundries.  They  were  strong  enough  to  carry  even  their 
politics.  Only  the  helpless  remained  stranded  in  Washington. 

The  shrewdest  statesman  of  all  was  Mr.  Boutwell,  who  showed  how 
he  understood  the  situation  by  turning  out  of  the  Treasury  everyone  who 
could  interfere  with  his  repose,  and  then  locking  himself  up  in  it,  alone. 
What  he  did  there,  no  one  knew.  His  colleagues  asked  him  in  vain. 


238  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

Not  a  word  could  they  get  from  him,  either  in  the  cabinet  or  out  of  it, 
of  suggestion  or  information  on  matters  even  of  vital  interest.  The 
Treasury  as  an  active  influence  ceased  to  exist.  Mr.  Boutwell  waited 
with  confidence  for  society  to  drag  his  department  out  of  the  mire,  as  it 
was  sure  to  do  if  he  waited  long  enough. 

Warned  hy  his  friends  in  the  cabinet  as  well  as  in  the  Treasury  that 
Mr.  Boutwell  meant  to  invite  no  support,  and  cared  to  receive  none, 
Adams  had  only  the  State  and  Interior  Departments  left  to  serve.  He 
wanted  no  better  than  to  serve  them.  Opposition  was  his  horror ;  pure 
waste  of  energy ;  a  union  with  northern  democrats  and  southern  rebels 
who  never  had  much  in  common  with  any  Adams,  and  had  never  shown 
any  warm  interest  about  them  except  to  drive  them  from  public  life. 
If  Mr.  Boutwell  turned  him  out  of  the  Treasury  with  the  indifference  or 
contempt  that  made  even  a  beetle  helpless,  Mr.  Fish  opened  the  State 
Department  freely,  and  seemed  to  talk  with  as  much  openness  as  any 
newspaper-man  could  ask.  At  all  events  Adams  could  cling  to  this  last 
plank  of  salvation,  and  make  himself  perhaps  the  recognised  champion 
of  Mr.  Fish  in  the  New  York  press.  He  never  once  thought  of  his 
disaster  between  Seward  and  Sumner  in  1861.  Such  an  accident  could 
not  occur  again.  Fish  and  Sumner  were  inseparable,  and  their  policy 
was  sure  to  be  safe  enough  for  support.  No  mosquito  could  be  so  unlucky 
as  to  be  caught  a  second  time  between  a  Secretary  and  a  Senator  who 
were  both  his  friends. 

This  dream  of  security  lasted  hardly  longer  than  that  of  1861.  Adams 
saw  Sumner  take  possession  of  the  Department,  and  he  approved ;  he 
saw  Sumner  seize  the  British  mission  for  Motley,  and  he  was  delighted ; 
but  when  he  renewed  his  relations  with  Sumner  in  the  winter  of  1869-70, 
he  began  slowly  to  grasp  the  idea  that  Sumner  had  a  foreign  policy  of 
his  own  which  he  proposed  also  to  force  on  the  Department.  This  was 
not  all.  Secretary  Fish  seemed  to  have  vanished.  Besides  the  Depart 
ment  of  State  over  which  he  nominally  presided  in  the  Infant  Asylum 
on  Fourteenth  Street,  there  had  risen  a  Department  of  Foreign  Relations 
over  which  Senator  Sumner  ruled  with  a  high  hand  at  the  Capitol ;  and, 
finally,  one  clearly  made  out  a  third  Foreign  Office  in  the  War  Department, 
with  President  Grant  himself  for  chief,  pressing  a  policy  of  extension 
in  the  West  Indies  which  no  northeastern  man  ever  approved.  For  his 


FKEE   FIGHT  239 

life,  Adams  could  not  learn  where  to  place  himself  among  all  these  forces. 
Officially  he  would  have  followed  the  responsible  Secretary  of  State,  but 
he  could  not  find  the  Secretary.  Fish  seemed  to  be  friendly  towards 
Sumner,  and  docile  towards  Grant,  but  he  asserted  as  yet  no  policy  of 
his  own.  As  for  Grant's  policy,  Adams  never  had  a  chance  to  know 
fully  what  it  was,  but,  as  far  as  he  did  know,  he  was  ready  to  give  it 
ardent  support.  The  difficulty  came  only  when  he  heard  Sumner's 
views,  which,  as  he  had  reason  to  know,  were  always  commands,  to  be 
disregarded  only  by  traitors. 

Little  by  little,  Sumner  unfolded  his  foreign  policy,  and  Adams 
gasped  with  fresh  astonishment  at  every  new  article  of  the  creed.  To  his 
profound  regret  he  heard  Sumner  begin  by  imposing  his  veto  on  all 
extension  within  the  tropics ;  which  cost  the  island  of  St.  Thomas  to 
the  United  States,  besides  the  Bay  of  Samana  as  an  alternative,  and 
ruined  Grant's  policy.  Then  he  listened  with  incredulous  stupor  while 
Sumner  unfolded  his  plan  for  concentrating  and  pressing  every  possible 
American  claim  against  England,  with  a  view  of  compelling  the  cession 
of  Canada  to  the  United  States. 

Adams  did  not  then  know — in  fact,  he  never  knew,  or  could  find 
anyone  to  tell  him, — what  was  going  on  behind  the  doors  of  the  White 
House.  He  doubted  whether  Mr.  Fish  or  Bancroft  Davis  knew  much 
more  than  he.  The  game  of  cross-purposes  was  as  impenetrable  in 
Foreign  Affairs  as  in  the  Gold  Conspiracy.  President  Grant  let  every 
one  go  on,  but  whom  he  supported,  Adams  could  not  be  expected  to 
divine.  One  point  alone  seemed  clear  to  a  man, — no  longer  so  very 
young, — who  had  lately  come  from  a  seven  years'  residence  in  London. 
He  thought  he  knew  as  much  as  anyone  in  Washington  about  England, 
and  he  listened  with  the  more  perplexity  to  Mr.  Sumner's  talk,  because 
it  opened  the  gravest  doubts  of  Sumner's  sanity.  If  war  was  his  object, 
and  Canada  were  worth  it,  Sumner's  scheme  showed  genius,  and  Adams 
was  ready  to  treat  it  seriously ;  but  if  he  thought  he  could  obtain  Canada 
from  England  as  a  voluntary  set-off  to  the  Alabama  Claims,  he  drivelled. 
On  the  point  of  fact,  Adams  was  as  peremptory  as  Sumner  on  the  point 
of  policy,  but  he  could  only  wonder  whether  Mr.  Fish  would  dare  say 
it.  When  at  last  Mr.  Fish  did  say  it,  a  year  later,  Sumner  publicly 
cut  his  acquaintance. 

Adams  was  the  more  puzzled  because  he  could  not  believe  Sumner 


240  THE   EDUCATION   OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

so  mad  as  to  quarrel  both  with  Fish  and  with  Grant.  A  quarrel 
with  Seward  and  Andrew  Johnson  was  bad  enough,  and  had  profited  no 
one ;  but  a  quarrel  with  General  Grant  was  lunacy.  Grant  might  be 
whatever  one  liked,  as  far  as  morals  or  temper  or  intellect  were  concerned, 
but  he  was  not  a  man  whom  a  light-weight  cared  to  challenge  for  a  fight ; 
and  Sumner,  whether  he  knew  it  or  not,  was  a  very  light  weight  in 
the  Republican  party,  if  separated  from  his  Committee  of  Foreign  Rela 
tions.  As  a  party  manager  he  had  not  the  weight  of  half  a  dozen 
men  whose  very  names  were  unknown  to  him. 

Between  these  great  forces,  where  was  the  administration  and  how 
was  one  to  support  it?  One  must  first  find  it,  and  even  then  it  was 
not  easily  caught.  Grant's  simplicity  was  more  disconcerting  than  the 
complexity  of  a  Talleyrand.  Mr.  Fish  afterwards  told  Adams,  with  the 
rather  grim  humor  he  sometimes  indulged  in,  that  Grant  took  a  dislike 
to  Motley  because  he  parted  his  hair  in  the  middle.  Adams  repeated 
the  story  to  Godkin,  who  made  much  play  with  it  in  the  Nation,  till 
it  was  denied.  Adams  saw  no  reason  why  it  should  be  denied.  Grant 
had  as  good  a  right  to  dislike  the  hair  as  the  head,  if  the  hair  seemed 
to  him  a  part  of  it.  Very  shrewd  men  have  formed  very  sound  judg 
ments  on  less  material  than  hair : — on  clothes,  for  example,  according 
to  Mr.  Carlyle,  or  on  a  pen,  according  to  Cardinal  de  Retz, — and  nine 
men  in  ten  could  hardly  give  as  good  a  reason  as  hair  for  their  likes 
or  dislikes.  In  truth  Grant  disliked  Motley  at  sight,  because  they  had 
nothing  in  common ;  and  for  the  same  reason  he  disliked  Sumner.  For 
the  same  reason  he  would  be  sure  to  dislike  Adams  if  Adams  gave 
him  a  chance.  Even  Fish  could  not  be  quite  sure  of  Grant,  except  for 
the  powerful  effect  which  wealth  had,  or  appeared  to  have,  on  Grant's 
imagination. 

The  quarrel  that  lowered  over  the  State  Department  did  not  break 
in  storm  till  July,  1870,  after  Adams  had  vanished,  but  another  quarrel, 
almost  as  fatal  to  Adams  as  that  between  Fish  and  Sumner,  worried 
him  even  more.  Of  all  members  of  the  Cabinet,  the  one  whom  he 
had  most  personal  interest  in  cultivating  was  Attorney-General  Hoar. 
The  Legal  Tender  decision,  which  had  been  the  first  stumbling  block 
to  Adams  at  Washington,  grew  in  interest  till  it  threatened  to  become 
something  more  serious  than  a  block ;  it  fell  on  one's  head  like  a  plaster 


FREE  FIGHT  241 

ceiling,  and  could  not  be  escaped.  The  impending  battle  between  Fish 
and  Sumner  was  nothing  like  so  serious  as  the  outbreak  between  Hoar 
and  Chief  Justice  Chase.  Adams  had  come  to  Washington  hoping  to 
support  the  Executive  in  a  policy  of  breaking  down  the  Senate,  but  he 
never  dreamed  that  he  would  be  required  to  help  in  breaking  down  the 
Supreme  Court.  Although,  step  by  step,  he  had  been  driven,  like  the 
rest  of  the  world,  to  admit  that  American  society  had  outgrown  most 
of  its  institutions,  he  still  clung  to  the  Supreme  Court,  much  as  a  church 
man  clings  to  his  bishops,  because  they  are  his  only  symbol  of  unity ; 
his  last  rag  of  Eight.  Between  the  Executive  and  the  Legislature, 
citizens  could  have  no  Rights ;  they  were  at  the  mercy  of  Power.  They 
had  created  the  Court  to  protect  them  from  unlimited  Power,  and  it  was 
little  enough  protection  at  best.  Adams  wanted  to  save  the  independence 
of  the  Court  at  least  for  his  life-time,  and  could  not  conceive  that  the 
Executive  should  wish  to  overthrow  it. 

Frank  Walker  shared  this  feeling,  and,  by  way  of  helping  the 
Court,  he  had  promised  Adams  for  the  North  American  Review  an 
article  on  the  history  of  the  Legal  Tender  Act,  founded  on  a  volume 
just  then  published  by  Spaulding,  the  putative  father  of  the  legal-tender 
clause  in  1861.  Secretary  Jacob  D.  Cox,  who  alone  sympathised  with 
reform,  saved  from  BoutwelPs  decree  of  banishment  such  reformers  as  he 
could  find  place  for,  and  he  saved  Walker  for  a  time  by  giving  him  the 
Census  of  1870.  Walker  was  obliged  to  abandon  his  article  for  the 
North  American  in  order  to  devote  himself  to  the  Census.  He  gave 
Adams  his  notes,  and  Adams  completed  the  article. 

He  had  not  toiled  in  vain  over  the  Bank  of  England  Restric 
tion.  He  knew  enough  about  Legal  Tender  to  leave  it  alone.  If  the 
banks  and  bankers  wanted  fiat  money,  fiat  money  was  good  enough  for 
a  newspaper-man ;  and  if  they  changed  about  and  wanted  "  intrinsic " 
value,  gold  and  silver  came  equally  welcome  to  a  writer  who  was  paid 
half  the  wages  of  an  ordinary  mechanic.  He  had  no  notion  of  attack 
ing  or  defending  Legal  Tender ;  his  object  was  to  defend  the  Chief 
Justice  and  the  Court.  Walker  argued  that,  whatever  might  afterwards 
have  been  the  necessity  for  legal  tender,  there  was  no  necessity  for  it  at 
the  time  the  Act  was  passed.  With  the  help  of  the  Chief  Justice's 
recollections,  Adams  completed  the  article,  which  appeared  in  the  April 
16 


242  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

number  of  the  North  American.  Its  ferocity  was  Walker's,  for  Adams 
never  cared  to  abandon  the  knife  for  the  hatchet,  but  Walker  reeked 
of  the  army  and  the  Springfield  Republican,  and  his  energy  ran  away 
with  Adams's  restraint.  The  unfortunate  Spaulding  complained  loudly 
of  this  treatment,  not  without  justice,  but  the  article  itself  had  serious 
historical  value,  for  Walker  demolished  every  shred  of  Spaulding's 
contention  that  legal  tender  was  necessary  at  the  time;  and  the  Chief 
Justice  told  his  part  of  the  story  with  conviction.  The  Chief  Justice 
seemed  to  be  pleased.  The  Attorney-General,  pleased  or  not,  made  no 
sign.  The  article  had  enough  historical  interest  to  induce  Adams  to 
reprint  it  in  a  volume  of  Essays  twenty  years  afterwards ;  but  its 
historical  value  was  not  its  point  in  education.  The  point  was  that,  in 
spite  of  the  best  intentions,  the  plainest  self-interest,  and  the  strongest 
wish  to  escape  further  trouble,  the  article  threw  Adams  into  opposition. 
Judge  Hoar,  like  Boutwell,  was  implacable. 

Hoar  went  on  to  demolish  the  Supreme  Court,  and  struck  its 
independence  a  blow  from  which  it  never  could  recover ;  while  Henry 
Adams  went  on,  drifting  further  and  further  from  the  Administration. 
He  did  this  in  common  with  all  the  world,  including  Hoar  himself. 
Scarcely  a  newspaper  in  the  country  kept  discipline.  The  New  York 
Tribune  was  one  of  the  most  criminal.  Dissolution  of  ties  in  every  direction 
marked  the  dissolution  of  temper,  and  the  Senate  Chamber  became  again 
a  scene  of  irritated  egotism  that  passed  ridicule.  Senators  quarreled  with 
each  other,  and  no  one  objected,  but  they  picked  quarrels  also  with  the 
Executive  and  threw  every  Department  into  confusion.  Among  others, 
they  quarreled  with  Hoar,  and  drove  him  from  office. 

That  Sumner  and  Hoar,  the  two  New  Englanders  in  great  position 
who  happened  to  be  the  two  persons  most  necessary  for  his  success  at 
Washington,  should  be  the  first  victims  of  Grant's  lax  rule,  must  have 
had  some  meaning  for  Adams's  education,  if  Adams  could  only  have 
understood  what  it  was.  He  studied,  but  failed.  Sympathy  with  him 
was  not  their  weakness.  Directly,  in  the  form  of  help,  he  knew  he  could 
hope  as  little  from  them  as  from  Boutwell.  So  far  from  inviting  attach 
ment  they,  like  other  New  Englanders,  blushed  to  own  a  friend.  Not 
one  of  the  whole  delegation  would  ever,  of  his  own  accord,  try  to  help 
Adams  or  any  other  young  man  who  did  not  beg  for  it,  but  they 


FREE  FIGHT  243 

would  always  accept  whatever  services  they  had  not  to  pay  for.  The 
lesson  of  education  was  not  there.  The  selfishness  of  politics  was  the 
earliest  of  all  political  education,  and  Adams  had  nothing  to  learn  from 
its  study ;  but  the  situation  struck  him  as  curious, — so  curious  that  he 
devoted  years  to  reflecting  upon  it.  His  four  most  powerful  friends 
had  matched  themselves,  two  and  two,  and  were  fighting  in  pairs  to  a 
finish ;  Sunmer-Fish ;  Chase-Hoar ;  with  foreign  affairs  and  the  judiciary 
as  prizes !  What  value  had  the  fight  in  education  ? 

Adams  was  puzzled,  and  was  not  the  only  puzzled  bystander.  The 
stage-type  of  statesman  was  amusing,  whether  as  Roscoe  Conkling  or 
Colonel  Mulberry  Sellers,  but  what  was  his  value?  The  statesmen  of  the 
old  type,  whether  Sumners  or  Conklings  or  Hoars  or  Lamars,  were  per 
sonally  as  honest  as  human  nature  could  produce.  They  trod  with  lofty 
contempt  on  other  people's  jobs,  especially  when  there  was  good  in  them. 
Yet  the  public  thought  that  Sumner  and  Conkling  cost  the  country  a 
hundred  times  more  than  all  the  jobs  they  ever  trod  on ;  just  as  Lamar 
and  the  old  southern  statesmen,  who  were  also  honest  in  money-matters, 
cost  the  country  a  civil  war.  This  painful  moral  doubt  worried  Adams 
less  than  it  worried  his  friends  and  the  public,  but  it  affected  the  whole 
field  of  politics  for  twenty  years.  The  newspapers  discussed  little  else 
than  the  moral  laxity  of  Grant,  Garfield  and  Elaine.  If  the  press  were 
taken  seriously,  politics  turned  on  jobs,  and  some  of  Adams's  best  friends, 
like  Godkin,  ruined  their  influence  by  their  insistence  on  points  of 
morals.  Society  hesitated,  wavered,  oscillated  between  harshness  and  laxity, 
pitilessly  sacrificing  the  weak,  and  deferentially  following  the  strong.  In 
spite  of  all  such  criticism,  the  public  nominated  Grant,  Garfield  and  Elaine 
for  the  Presidency,  and  voted  for  them  afterwards,  not  seeming  to  care 
for  their  morals ;  until  young  men  were  forced  to  see  that  either  some 
new  moral  standard  must  be  created,  or  none  could  be  upheld.  The 
moral  law  had  expired, — like  the  Constitution. 

Grant's  administration  outraged  every  rule  of  ordinary  decency,  but 
scores  of  promising  men,  whom  the  country  could  not  well  spare,  were 
ruined  in  saying  so.  The  world  cared  little  for  decency.  What  it  wanted, 
it  did  not  know ;  probably  a  system  that  would  work,  and  men  who 
could  work  it ;  but  it  found  neither.  Adams  had  tried  his  own  little 
hands  on  it,  and  had  failed.  His  friends  had  been  driven  out  of  Wash- 


244  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENEY  ADAMS 

ington   or   had    taken    to    fisticuffs.      He   himself   sat   down   and   stared 
helplessly  into  the  future. 

The  result  was  a  review  of  the  Session  for  the  July  North  American 
into  which  he  crammed  and  condensed  everything  he  thought  he  had 
observed  and  all  he  had  been  told.  He  thought  it  good  history  then, 
and  he  thought  it  better  twenty  years  afterwards ;  he  thought  it  even 
good  enough  to  reprint.  As  it  happened,  in  the  process  of  his  devious 
education,  this  "Session"  of  1869-70  proved  to  be  his  last  study  in 
current  politics,  and  his  last  dying  testament  as  a  humble  member  of 
the  press.  As  such,  he  stood  by  it.  He  could  have  said  no  more,  had 
he  gone  on  reviewing  every  session  in  the  rest  of  the  century.  The 
political  dilemma  was  as  clear  in  1870  as  it  was  likely  to  be  in  1970. 
The  system  of  1789  had  broken  down,  and  with  it  the  eighteenth 
century  fabric  of  a  priori,  or  moral,  principles.  Politicians  had  tacitly 
given  it  up.  Grant's  administration  marked  the  avowal.  Nine  tenths 
of  men's  political  energies  must  henceforth  be  wasted  on  expedients  to 
piece  out, — to  patch, — or,  in  vulgar  language,  to  tinker, — the  political 
machine  as  often  as  it  broke  down.  Such  a  system,  or  want  of  system, 
might  last  centuries,  if  tempered  by  an  occasional  revolution  or  civil  war ; 
but  as  a  machine,  it  was,  or  soon  would  be,  the  poorest  in  the  world, — 
the  clumsiest, — the  most  inefficient. 

Here  again  was  an  education,  but  what  it  was  worth  he  could  not 
guess.  Indeed  when  he  raised  his  eyes  to  the  loftiest  and  most  triumph 
ant  results  of  politics — to  Mr.  Boutwell,  Mr.  Conkling  or  even  Mr. 
Sumner,  he  could  not  honestly  say  that  such  an  education,  even  when  it 
carried  one  up  to  these  unattainable  heights,  was  worth  anything.  There 
were  men,  as  yet  standing  on  lower  levels, — clever  and  amusing  men  like 
Garfield  and  Elaine, — who  took  no  little  pleasure  in  making  fun  of  the 
senatorial  demi-gods,  and  who  used  language  about  Grant  himself  which 
the  North  American  Review  would  not  have  admitted.  One  asked  doubt 
fully  what  was  likely  to  become  of  these  men  in  their  turn.  What 
kind  of  political  ambition  was  to  result  from  this  destructive  political 
education?  The  problem  never  was  solved, — had  no  solution.  Garfield 
and  Elaine  followed  the  failures  of  Grant  and  Sumner. 

Yet  the  sum  of  political  life  was,  or  should  have  been,  the  attain 
ment  of  a  working  political  system.  Society  needed  to  reach  it.  If 
morals  broke  down,  and  machinery  stopped  working,  new  morals  and 


FREE   FIGHT  245 

machinery  of  some  sort  had  to  be  invented.  An  eternity  of  Grants,  or 
even  of  Garfields,  or  of  Conklings  or  of  Jay  Goulds,  refused  to  be 
conceived  as  possible.  Practical  Americans  laughed,  and  went  their  way. 
Society  paid  them  to  be  practical.  Whenever  society  cared  to  pay 
Adams,  he  too  would  be  practical,  take  his  pay,  and  hold  his  tongue  ; 
but  meanwhile  he  was  driven  to  associate  with  democratic  congressmen 
and  educate  them.  He  served  David  Wells  as  an  active  assistant  professor 
of  revenue  reform,  and  turned  his  rooms  into  a  College.  The  administration 
drove  him,  and  thousands  of  other  young  men,  into  active  enmity  not  only 
to  Grant  but  to  the  system  or  want  of  system,  which  took  possession  of  the 
President.  Every  hope  or  thought  which  had  brought  Adams  to  Washing 
ton  proved  to  be  absurd.  No  one  wanted  him ;  no  one  wanted  any  of  his 
friends  in  reform ;  the  blackmailer  alone  was  the  normal  product  of  politics 
as  of  business. 

All  this  was  excessively  amusing.  Adams  never  had  been  so  busy, 
so  interested,  so  much  in  the  thick  of  the  crowd.  He  knew  Congress 
men  by  scores  and  newspaper-men  by  the  dozen.  He  wrote  for  his 
various  organs  all  sorts  of  attacks  and  defences.  He  enjoyed  the  life 
enormously,  and  found  himself  as  happy  as  Sam  Ward  or  Sunset 
Cox ;  much  happier  than  his  friends  Fish  or  J.  D.  Cox,  or  Chief 
Justice  Chase  or  Attorney-General  Hoar  or  Charles  Sumner.  When 
spring  came  he  took  to  the  woods,  which  were  best  of  all,  for  after  the 
first  of  April,  what  Maurice  de  Gue"rin  called  "  the  vast  maternity "  of 
nature  showed  charms  more  voluptuous  than  the  vast  paternity  of  the 
United  States  Senate.  Senators  were  less  ornamental  than  the  dogwood 
or  even  the  Judas-tree.  They  were  as  a  rule,  less  good  company. 
Adams  astonished  himself  by  remarking  what  a  purified  charm  was 
lent  to  the  Capitol  by  the  greatest  possible  distance,  as  one  caught 
glimpses  of  the  dome  over  miles  of  forest-foliage.  At  such  moments  he 
pondered  on  the  distant  beauty  of  St.  Peter's  and  the  steps  of  Ara  Coeli. 

Yet  he  shortened  his  spring  for  he  needed  to  get  back  to  London 
for  the  season.  He  had  finished  his  New  York  Gold  Conspiracy,  which 
he  meant  for  his  friend  Henry  Reeve  and  the  Edinburgh  Review.  It  was 
the  best  piece  of  work  he  had  done,  but  this  was  not  his  reason  for 
publishing  it  in  England.  The  Erie  scandal  had  provoked  a  sort  of 
revolt  among  respectable  New  Yorkers,  as  well  as  among  some  who' 


246  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

were  not  so  respectable ;  and  the  attack  on  Erie  was  beginning  to 
promise  success.  London  was  a  sensitive  spot  for  the  Erie  management, 
and  it  was  thought  well  to  strike  them  there,  where  they  were  socially 
and  financially  exposed.  The  tactics  suited  him  in  another  way,  for  any 
expression  about  America  in  an  English  Review  attracted  ten  times  the 
attention  in  America  that  the  same  article  would  attract  in  the  North 
American.  Habitually  the  American  dailies  reprinted  such  articles  in 
full.  Adams  wanted  to  escape  the  terrors  of  copyright ;  his  highest 
ambition  was  to  be  pirated  and  advertised  free  of  charge,  since,  in  any 
case,  his  pay  was  nothing.  Under  the  excitement  of  chace,  he  was 
becoming  a  pirate  himself,  and  liked  it. 


CHAPTER    XIX 

1870 

One  fine  May  afternoon  in  1870  Adams  drove  again  up  St.  James's 
Street  wondering  more  than  ever  at  the  marvels  of  life.  Nine  years  had 
passed  since  the  historic  entrance  of  May,  1861.  Outwardly  London  was 
the  same.  Outwardly  Europe  showed  no  great  change.  Palmerston 
and  Russell  were  forgotten ;  but  Disraeli  and  Gladstone  were  still  much 
alive.  One's  friends  were  more  than  ever  prominent.  John  Bright  was  in 
the  Cabinet ;  W.  E.  Forster  was  about  to  enter  it ;  reform  ran  riot.  Never 
had  the  sun  of  progress  shone  so  fair.  Evolution  from  lower  to  higher 
raged  like  an  epidemic.  Darwin  was  the  greatest  of  prophets  in  the 
most  evolutionary  of  worlds.  Gladstone  had  overthrown  the  Irish  Church  ; 
was  overthrowing  the  Irish  Landlords ;  was  trying  to  pass  an  Education 
Act.  Improvement,  prosperity,  power,  were  leaping  and  bounding  over 
every  country  road.  Even  America,  with  her  Erie  scandals  and 
Alabama  Claims  hardly  made  a  discordant  note. 

At  the  Legation,  Motley  ruled ;  the  long  Adams  reign  was  forgotten ; 
the  rebellion  had  passed  into  history.  In  society  no  one  cared  to  recall 
the  years  before  the  Prince  of  Wales.  The  smart  set  had  come  to  their 
own.  Half  the  houses  that  Adams  had  frequented  from  1861  to  1865, 
were  closed  or  closing  in  1870.  Death  had  ravaged  one's  circle  of  friends. 
Mrs.  Milnes  Gaskell  and  her  sister  Miss  Charlotte  Wynn  were  both 
dead,  and  Mr.  James  Milnes  Gaskell  was  no  longer  in  Parliament.  That 
field  of  education  seemed  closed  too. 

One  found  oneself  in  a  singular  frame  of  mind, — more  eighteenth- 
century  than  ever, — almost  rococo,  —  and  unable  to  catch  anywhere  the 
cog-wheels  of  evolution.  Experience  ceased  to  educate.  London  taught 

247 


248  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

less  freely  than  of  old.  That  one  bad  style  was  leading  to  another,  — that 
the  older  men  were  more  amusing  than  the  younger, — that  Lord  Houghton's 
breakfast-table  showed  gaps  hard  to  fill,  —  that  there  were  fewer  men 
one  wanted  to  meet,  —  these,  and  a  hundred  more  such  remarks  helped 
little  towards  a  quicker  and  more  intelligent  activity.  For  English 
reforms,  Adams  cared  nothing.  The  reforms  were  themselves  mediaeval. 
The  Education  Bill  of  his  friend  W.  E.  Forster  seemed  to  him  a  guaranty 
against  all  education  he  had  use  for.  He  resented  change.  He  would 
have  kept  the  Pope  in  the  Vatican  and  the  Queen  at  Windsor  Castle  as 
historical  monuments.  He  did  not  care  to  Americanise  Europe.  The 
Bastile  or  the  Ghetto  was  a  curiosity  worth  a  great  deal  of  money,  if 
preserved ;  and  so  was  a  Bishop ;  so  was  Napoleon  III.  The  tourist  was 
the  great  conservative  who  hated  novelty  and  adored  dirt.  Adams  came 
back  to  London  without  a  thought  of  revolution  or  restlessness  or  reform. 
He  wanted  amusement,  quiet  and  gaiety. 

Had  he  not  been  born  in  1838  under  the  shadow  of  Boston  State 
House,  and  been  brought  up  in  the  Early  Victorian  epoch,  he  would 
have  cast  off  his  old  skin,  and  made  his  court  to  Marlborough  House,  in 
partnership  with  the  American  woman  and  the  Jew  banker.  Common- 
sense  dictated  it ;  but  Adams  and  his  friends  were  unfashionable  by  some 
law  of  Anglo-Saxon  custom, — some  innate  atrophy  of  mind.  Figuring 
himself  as  already  a  man  of  action,  and  rather  far  up  towards  the  front, 
he  had  no  idea  of  making  a  new  effort  or  catching  up  with  a  new  world. 
He  saw  nothing  ahead  of  him.  The  world  was  never  more  calm.  He 
wanted  to  talk  with  ministers  about  the  Alabama  Claims,  because  he 
looked  on  the  Claims  as  his  own  special  creation,  discussed  between  him 
and  his  father  long  before  they  had  been  discussed  by  government;  he 
wanted  to  make  notes  for  his  next  year's  articles ;  but  he  had  not  a  thought 
that,  within  three  months,  his  world  was  to  be  upset,  and  he  under  it. 
Frank  Palgrave  came  one  day,  more  contentious,  contemptuous  and  para 
doxical  than  ever,  because  Napoleon  III  seemed  to  be  threatening  war 
with  Germany.  Palgrave  said  that  "  Germany  would  beat  France  into 
scraps  "  if  there  was  war.  Adams  thought  not.  The  chances  were  always 
against  catastrophes.  No  one  else  expected  great  changes  in  Europe. 
Palgrave  was  always  extreme;  his  language  was  incautious — violent! 

In   this  year  of  all  years,  Adams  lost  sight  of  education.      Things 


CHAOS  249 

began  smoothly,  and  London  glowed  with  the  pleasant  sense  of  familiarity 
and  dinners.  He  sniffed  with  voluptuous  delight  the  coal-smoke  of 
Cheapside  and  revelled  in  the  architecture  of  Oxford  Street.  May  Fair 
never  shone  so  fair  to  Arthur  Pendennis  as  it  did  to  the  returned  American. 
The  country  never  smiled  its  velvet  smile  of  trained  and  easy  hostess  as 
it  did  when  he  was  so  lucky  as  to  be  asked  on  a  country-visit.  He  loved 
it  all — everything; — had  always  loved  it!  He  felt  almost  attached  to 
the  Koyal  Exchange.  He  thought  he  owned  the  St.  James  Club.  He 
patronised  the  Legation. 

The  first  shock  came  lightly,  as  though  nature  were  playing  tricks 
on  her  spoiled  child  though  she  had  thus  far  not  exerted  herself  to  spoil 
him.  Reeve  refused  the  Gold  Conspiracy.  Adams  had  become  used  to 
the  idea  that  he  was  free  of  the  Quarterlies,  and  that  his  writing  would 
be  printed  of  course;  but  he  was  stunned  by  the  reason  of  refusal. 
Reeve  said  it  would  bring  half-a-dozen  libel  suits  on  him.  One  knew 
that  the  power  of  Erie  was  almost  as  great  in  England  as  in  America, 
but  one  was  hardly  prepared  to  find  it  controlling  the  Quarterlies.  The 
English  press  professed  to  be  shocked  in  1870  by  the  Erie  scandal, 
as  it  had  professed  in  1860  to  be  shocked  by  the  scandal  of  slavery, 
but  when  invited  to  support  those  who  were  trying  to  abate  these 
scandals,  the  English  press  said  it  was  afraid.  To  Adams,  Reeve's  refusal 
seemed  portentous.  He  and  his  brother  and  the  North  American  Review 
were  running  greater  risks  every  day,  and  no  one  thought  of  fear.  That 
a  notorious  story,  taken  bodily  from  an  official  document,  should  scare 
the  Edinburgh  Review  into  silence  for  fear  of  Jay  Gould  and  Jim  Fisk, 
passed  even  Adams's  experience  of  English  eccentricity,  though  it  was 
large. 

He  gladly  set  down  Reeve's  refusal  of  the  Gold  Conspiracy  to 
respectability  and  editorial  law,  but  when  he  sent  the  manuscript  on 
to  the  Quarterly,  the  editor  of  the  Quarterly  also  refused  it.  The 
literary  standard  of  the  two  Quarterlies  was  not  so  high  as  to  suggest 
that  the  article  was  illiterate  beyond  the  power  of  an  active  and  willing 
editor  to  redeem  it.  Adams  had  no  choice  but  to  realise  that  he  had  to 
deal  in  1870  with  the  same  old  English  character  of  1860,  and  the 
same  inability  in  himself  to  understand  it.  As  usual,  when  an  ally 
was  needed,  the  American  was  driven  into  the  arms  of  the  radicals. 


250  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

Respectability,  everywhere  and  always,  turned  its  back  the  moment  one 
asked  to  do  it  a  favor.  Called  suddenly  away  from  England,  he 
despatched  the  article,  at  the  last  moment,  to  the  Westminster  Review 
and  heard  no  more  about  it  for  nearly  six  months. 

He  had  been  some  weeks  in  London  when  he  received  a  telegram 
from  his  brother-in-law  at  the  Bagni  di  Lucca  telling  him  that  his 
sister  had  been  thrown  from  a  cab  and  injured,  and  that  he  had  better 
come  on.  He  started  that  night,  and  reached  the  Bagni  di  Lucca  on 
the  second  day.  Tetanus  had  already  set  in. 

The  last  lesson, — the  sum  and  term  of  education, — began  then.  He 
had  passed  through  thirty  years  of  rather  varied  experience  without 
having  once  felt  the  shell  of  custom  broken.  He  had  never  seen  nature, 
— only  her  surface, — the  sugar-coating  that  she  shows  to  youth.  Flung 
suddenly  in  his  face,  with  the  harsh  brutality  of  chance,  the  terror  of 
the  blow  stayed  by  him  thenceforth  for  life,  until  repetition  made  it 
more  than  the  will  could  struggle  with ;  more  than  he  could  call  on 
himself  to  bear.  He  found  his  sister,  a  woman  of  forty,  as  gay  and 
brilliant  in  the  terrors  of  lock-jaw  as  she  had  been  in  the  careless  fun 
of  1859,  lying  in  bed  in  consequence  of  a  miserable  cab-accident  that 
had  bruised  her  foot.  Hour  by  hour  the  muscles  grew  rigid,  while  the 
mind  remained  bright,  until  after  ten  days  of  fiendish  torture  she  died 
in  convulsions. 

One  had  heard  and  read  a  great  deal  about  death,  and  even  seen 
a  little  of  it,  and  knew  by  heart  the  thousand  commonplaces  of  religion 
and  poetry  which  seemed  to  deaden  one's  senses  and  veil  the  horror. 
Society  being  immortal,  could  put  on  immortality  at  will.  Adams  being 
mortal,  felt  only  the  mortality.  Death  took  features  altogether  new  to 
him,  in  these  rich  and  sensuous  surroundings.  Nature  enjoyed  it,  played 
with  it,  the  horror  added  to  her  charm,  she  liked  the  torture,  and 
smothered  her  victim  with  caresses.  Never  had  one  seen  her  so 
winning.  The  hot  Italian  summer  brooded  outside,  over  the  market-place 
and  the  picturesque  peasants,  and,  in  the  singular  color  of  the  Tuscan 
atmosphere,  the  hills  and  vineyards  of  the  Appenines  seemed  bursting 
with  midsummer  blood.  The  sickroom  itself  glowed  with  the  Italian  joy 
of  life ;  friends  filled  it ;  no  harsh  northern  lights  pierced  the  soft 
shadows ;  even  the  dying  woman  shared  the  sense  of  the  Italian  summer, 


CHAOS  251 

the  soft,  velvet  air,  the  humor,  the  courage,  the  sensual  fullness  of  nature 
and  man.  She  faced  death,  as  women  mostly  do,  bravely  and  even 
gaily,  racked  slowly  to  unconsciousness,  but  yielding  only  to  violence,  as 
a  soldier  sabred  in  battle.  For  many  thousands  of  years,  on  these 
hills  and  plains,  nature  had  gone  on  sabring  men  and  women  with  the 
same  air  of  sensual  pleasure. 

Impressions  like  these  are  not  reasoned  or  catalogued  in  the  mind ; 
they  are  felt  as  part  of  violent  emotion ;  and  the  mind  that  feels  them 
is  a  different  one  from  that  which  reasons ;  it  is  thought  of  a  different 
power  and  a  different  person.  The  first  serious  consciousness  of  nature's 
gesture, — her  attitude  towards  life, — took  form  then  as  a  fantasm,  a 
nightmare,  an  insanity  of  force.  For  the  first  time,  the  stage-scenery  of 
the  senses  collapsed ;  the  human  mind  felt  itself  stripped  naked,  vibrating 
in  a  void  of  shapeless  energies,  with  resistless  mass,  colliding,  crushing, 
wasting  and  destroying  what  these  same  energies  had  created  and  labored 
from  eternity  to  perfect.  Society  became  fantastic,  a  vision  of  pantomime 
with  a  mechanical  motion ;  and  its  so-called  thought  merged  in  the 
mere  sense  of  life,  and  pleasure  in  the  sense.  The  usual  anodynes  of 
social  medicine  became  evident  artifice.  Stoicism  was  perhaps  the  best ; 
religion  was  the  most  human ;  but  the  idea  that  any  personal  deity 
could  find  pleasure  or  profit  in  torturing  a  poor  woman,  by  accident, 
with  a  fiendish  cruelty  known  to  man  only  in  perverted  and  insane 
temperaments,  could  not  be  held  for  a  moment.  For  pure  blasphemy,  it 
made  pure  atheism  a  comfort.  God  might  be,  as  the  Church  said,  a 
Substance,  but  he  could  not  be  a  Person. 

With  nerves  strained  for  the  first  time  beyond  their  power  of 
tension,  he  slowly  travelled  northwards  with  his  friends,  and  stopped  for  a 
few  days  at  Ouchy  to  recover  his  balance  in  a  new  world ;  for  the 
fantastic  mystery  of  coincidences  had  made  the  world,  which  he  thought 
real,  mimic  and  reproduce  the  distorted  nightmare  of  his  personal 
horror.  He  did  not  yet  know  it,  and  he  was  twenty  years  in  finding 
it  out ;  but  he  had  need  of  all  the  beauty  of  the  Lake  below  and  of  the 
Alps  above,  to  restore  the  finite  to  its  place.  For  the  first  time  in  his 
life,  Mont  Blanc  for  a  moment  looked  to  him  what  it  was, — a  chaos  of 
anarchic  and  purposeless  forces, — and  he  needed  days  of  repose  to  see  it 
clothe  itself  again  with  the  illusions  of  his  senses,  the  white  purity  of  its 


252  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

snows,  the  splendor  of  its  light,  and  the  infinity  of  its  heavenly  peace. 
Nature  was  kind ;  Lake  Geneva  was  beautiful  beyond  itself,  and  the 
Alps  put  on  charms  real  as  terrors ;  but  man  became  chaotic,  and  before 
the  illusions  of  nature  were  wholly  restored,  the  illusions  of  Europe 
suddenly  vanished,  leaving  a  new  world  to  learn. 

On  July  4,  all  Europe  had  been  in  peace ;  on  July  14,  Europe  was 
in  full  chaos  of  war.  One  felt  helpless  and  ignorant,  but  one  might 
have  been  king  or  kaiser  without  feeling  stronger  to  deal  with  the  chaos. 
Mr.  Gladstone  was  as  much  astounded  as  Adams ;  the  Emperor  Napoleon 
was  nearly  as  stupefied  as  either,  and  Bismarck  himself  hardly  knew 
how  he  did  it.  As  education,  the  outbreak  of  the  war  was  wholly  lost 
on  a  man  dealing  with  death  hand-to-hand,  who  could  not  throw  it 
aside  to  look  at  it  across  the  Rhine.  Only  when  he  got  up  to  Paris, 
he  began  to  feel  the  approach  of  catastrophe.  Providence  set  up  no 
affiches  to  announce  the  tragedy.  Under  one's  eyes  France  cut  herself 
adrift,  and  floated  off,  on  an  unknown  stream,  towards  a  less  known 
ocean.  Standing  on  the  curb  of  the  Boulevard,  one  could  see  as  much 
as  though  one  stood  by  the  side  of  the  Emperor  or  in  command  of  an 
army-corps.  The  effect  was  lurid.  The  public  seemed  to  look  on  the 
war,  as  it  had  looked  on  the  wars  of  Louis  XIV  and  Francis  I,  as  a 
branch  of  decorative  art.  The  French,  like  true  artists,  always  regarded 
war  as  one  of  the  fine  arts.  Louis  XIV  practised  it ;  Napoleon  I 
perfected  it ;  and  Napoleon  III  had  till  then  pursued  it  in  the  same 
spirit  with  singular  success.  In  Paris,  in  July,  1870,  the  war  was 
brought  out  like  an  opera  of  Meyerbeer.  One  felt  oneself  a  supernumerary 
hired  to  fill  the  scene.  Every  evening  at  the  theatre  the  comedy  was 
interrupted  by  order,  and  one  stood  up  by  order,  to  join  in  singing  the 
Marseillaise  to  order.  For  nearly  twenty  years  one  had  been  forbidden  to 
sing  the  Marseillaise  under  any  circumstances,  but  at  last  regiment  after 
regiment  marched  through  the  streets  shouting  "  Marchons ! ",  while  the 
bystanders  cared  not  enough  to  join.  Patriotism  seemed  to  have  been  brought 
out  of  the  government  stores,  and  distributed  by  grammes  per  capita.  One 
had  seen  one's  own  people  dragged  unwillingly  into  a  war,  and  had  watched 
one's  own  regiments  march  to  the  front  without  sign  of  enthusiasm ;  on 
the  contrary,  most  serious,  anxious,  and  conscious  of  the  whole  weight  of 
the  crisis ;  but  in  Paris  everyone  conspired  to  ignore  the  crisis,  which 
everyone  felt  at  hand.  Here  was  education  for  the  million  but  the 


CHAOS  253 

lesson  was  intricate.  Superficially  Napoleon  and  his  ministers  and 
marshals  were  playing  a  game  against  Thiers  and  Gambetta.  A 
bystander  knew  almost  as  little  as  they  did  about  the  result.  How 
could  Adams  prophecy  that  in  another  year  or  two,  when  he  spoke  of  his 
Paris  and  its  tastes,  people  would  smile  at  his  dotage? 

As  soon  as  he  could,  he  fled  to  England  and  once  more  took  refuge 
in  the  profound  peace  of  Wenlock  Abbey.  Only  the  few  remaining 
monks,  undisturbed  by  the  brutalities  of  Henry  VIII, — three  or  four 
young  Englishmen  —  survived  there,  with  Milnes  Gaskell  acting  as  Prior. 
The  August  sun  was  warm  ;  the  calm  of  the  Abbey  was  ten  times  secular  ; 
not  a  discordant  sound, — hardly  a  sound  of  any  sort  except  the  cawing 
of  the  ancient  rookery  at  sunset, — broke  the  stillness;  and,  after  the 
excitement  of  the  last  month,  one  felt  a  palpable  haze  of  peace  brooding 
over  the  Edge  and  the  Welsh  Marches.  Since  the  reign  of  Pteraspis, 
nothing  had  greatly  changed ;  nothing  except  the  monks.  Lying  on 
the  turf,  the  ground  littered  with  newspapers,  the  monks  studied  the 
war-correspondence.  In  one  respect  Adams  had  succeeded  in  educating 
himself;  he  had  learned  to  follow  a  campaign. 

While  at  Wenlock,  he  received  a  letter  from  President  Eliot  inviting 
him  to  take  an  Assistant  Professorship  of  History,  to  be  created  shortly 
at  Harvard  College.  After  waiting  ten  or  a  dozen  years  for  some  one  to 
show  consciousness  of  his  existence,  even  a  Terebratula  would  be  pleased 
and  grateful  for  a  compliment  which  implied  that  the  new  President  of 
Harvard  College  wanted  his  help ;  but  Adams  knew  nothing  about  history, 
and  much  less  about  teaching,  while  he  knew  more  than  enough  about 
Harvard  College ;  and  wrote  at  once  to  thank  President  Eliot,  with  much 
regret  that  the  honor  should  be  above  his  powers.  His  mind  was  full  of 
other  matters.  The  summer,  from  which  he  had  expected  only  amusement 
and  social  relations  with  new  people,  had  ended  in  the  most  intimate 
personal  tragedy,  and  the  most  terrific  political  convulsion  he  had  ever 
known  or  was  likely  to  know.  He  had  failed  in  every  object  of  his  trip. 
The  Quarterlies  had  refused  his  best  essay.  He  had  made  no  acquaintances 
and  hardly  picked  up  the  old  ones.  He  sailed  from  Liverpool,  on 
September  1,  to  begin  again  where  he  had  started  two  years  before,  but 
with  no  longer  a  hope  of  attaching  himself  to  a  President  or  a  party 
or  a  press.  He  was  a  free  lance  and  no  other  career  stood  in  sight  or 
in  mind.  To  that  point  education  had  brought  him. 


254  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

Yet  he  found,  on  reaching  home,  that  he  had  not  done  quite  so 
badly  as  he  feared.  His  article  on  the  Session  in  the  July  North  American 
had  made  success.  Though  he  could  not  quite  see  what  partisan  object 
it  served,  he  heard  with  flattered  astonishment  that  it  had  been  reprinted 
by  the  democratic  national  committee  and  circulated  as  a  campaign 
document  by  the  hundred  thousand  copies.  He  was  henceforth  in 
opposition,  do  what  he  might ;  and  a  Massachusetts  democrat,  say  what 
he  pleased ;  while  his  only  reward  or  return  for  this  partisan  service  con 
sisted  in  being  formally  answered  by  Senator  Timothy  Howe  of  Wisconsin 
in  a  republican  campaign  document,  presumed  to  be  also  freely  circulated, 
in  which  the  Senator,  besides  refuting  his  opinions,  did  him  the  honor, — 
most  unusual  and  picturesque  in  a  Senator's  rhetoric, — of  likening  him 
to  a  begonia. 

The  begonia  is,  or  then  was,  a  plant  of  such  senatorial  qualities  as 
to  make  the  simile,  in  intention,  most  flattering.  Far  from  charming  in 
its  refinement,  the  begonia  was  remarkable  for  curious  and  showy  foliage ; 
it  was  conspicuous ;  it  seemed  to  have  no  useful  purpose ;  and  it  insisted 
on  standing  always  in  the  most  prominent  positions.  Adams  would 
have  greatly  liked  to  be  a  begonia  in  Washington,  for  this  was  rather 
his  ideal  of  the  successful  statesman,  and  he  thought  about  it  still  more 
when  the  Westminster  Review  for  October  brought  him  his  article  on 
the  Gold  Conspiracy,  which  was  also  instantly  pirated  on  a  great  scale. 
Piratical  he  was  himself  henceforth  driven  to  be,  and  he  asked  only  to 
be  pirated,  for  he  was  sure  not  to  be  paid ;  but  the  honors  of  piracy 
resemble  the  colors  of  the  begonia;  they  are  showy  but  not  useful. 
Here  was  a  tour  de  force  he  had  never  dreamed  himself  equal  to  perform 
ing  : — two  long,  dry,  quarterly,  thirty  or  forty  page  articles,  appearing 
in  quick  succession,  and  pirated  for  audiences  running  well  into  the 
hundred  thousands ;  and  not  one  person,  man  or  woman,  offering  him 
so  much  as  a  congratulation,  except  to  call  him  a  begonia. 

Had  this  been  all,  life  might  have  gone  on  very  happily  as  before,  bu 
the  ways  of  America  to  a  young  person  of  literary  and  political  tastes 
were  such  as  the  so-called  evolution  of  civilised  man  had  not  before  evolved. 
No  sooner  had  Adams  made  at  Washington  what  he  modestly  hoped 
was  a  sufficient  success,  than  his  whole  family  set  on  him  to  drag  him 
away.  For  the  first  time  since  1861  his  father  interposed;  his  mother 


CHAOS  255 

entreated ;  and  his  brother  Charles  argued  and  urged  that  he  should 
come  to  Harvard  College.  Charles  had  views  of  further  joint  opera 
tions  in  a  new  field.  He  said  that  Henry  had  done  at  Washington 
all  he  could  possibly  do ;  that  his  position  there  wanted  solidity ;  that 
he  was,  after  all,  an  adventurer ;  that  a  few  years  in  Cambridge  would 
give  him  personal  weight ;  that  his  chief  function  was  not  to  be  that 
of  teacher,  but  that  of  editing  the  North  American  Review  which  was 
to  be  coupled  with  the  Professorship,  and  would  lead  to  the  daily  press. 
In  short,  that  he  needed  the  University  more  than  the  University 
needed  him. 

Henry  knew  the  University  well  enough  to  know  that  the  department 
of  history  was  controlled  by  one  of  the  most  astute  and  ideal  adminis 
trators  in  the  world, — Professor  Gurney, — and  that  it  was  Gurney  who 
had  established  the  new  professorship,  and  had  cast  his  net  over  Adams 
to  carry  the  double  load  of  mediaeval  history  and  the  Review.  He 
could  see  no  relation  whatever  between  himself  and  a  professorship.  He 
sought  education ;  he  did  not  sell  it.  He  knew  no  history ;  he  knew 
only  a  few  historians ;  his  ignorance  was  mischievous  because  it  was 
literary,  accidental,  indifferent.  On  the  other  hand,  he  knew  Gurney, 
and  felt  much  influenced  by  his  advice.  One  cannot  take  oneself  quite 
seriously  in  such  matters ;  it  could  not  much  affect  the  sum  of  solar  energies 
whether  one  went  on  dancing  with  girls  in  Washington,  or  began 
talking  to  boys  at  Cambridge.  The  good  people  who  thought  it  did 
matter  had  a  sort  of  right  to  guide.  One  could  not  reject  their  advice; 
still  less  disregard  their  wishes. 

The  sum  of  the  matter  was  that  Henry  went  out  to  Cambridge  and 
had  a  few  words  with  President  Eliot  which  seemed  to  him  almost 
as  American  as  the  talk  about  diplomacy  with  his  father  ten  years 
before.  "But,  Mr.  President,"  urged  Adams,  "I  know  nothing  about 
Mediaeval  History."  With  the  courteous  manner  and  bland  smile  so 
familiar  for  the  next  generation  of  Americans,  Mr.  Eliot  mildly  but 
firmly  replied, — "If  you  will  point  out  to  me  any  one  who  knows  more, 
Mr.  Adams,  I  will  appoint  him."  The  answer  was  neither  logical  nor 
convincing,  but  Adams  could  not  meet  it  without  overstepping  his 
privileges.  He  could  not  say  that  under  the  circumstances,  the  appoint 
ment  of  any  professor  at  all  seemed  to  him  unnecessary. 


256  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

So,  at  twenty-four  hours'  notice,  lie  broke  his  life  in  halves  again 
in  order  to  begin  a  new  education,  on  lines  he  had  not  chosen,  in  subjects 
for  which  he  cared  less  than  nothing;  in  a  place  he  did  not  love,  and 
before  a  future  which  repelled.  Thousands  of  men  have  to  do  the 
same  thing,  but  his  case  was  peculiar  because  he  had  no  need  to  do  it. 
He  did  it  because  his  best  and  wisest  friends  urged  it,  and  he  never 
could  make  up  his  mind  whether  they  were  right  or  not.  To  him  this 
kind  of  education  was  always  false.  For  himself  he  had  no  doubts.  He 
thought  it  a  mistake;  but  his  opinion  did  not  prove  that  it  was  one, 
since,  in  all  probability,  whatever  he  did  would  be  more  or  less  a 
mistake.  He  had  reached  cross-roads  of  education  which  all  led  astray. 
What  he  could  gain  at  Harvard  College  he  did  not  know,  but  in  any 
case  it  was  nothing  he  wanted.  What  he  lost  at  Washington  he  could 
partly  see,  but  in  any  case  it  was  not  fortune.  Grant's  administration 
wrecked  men  by  thousands  but  profited  few.  One  might  search  the 
whole  list  of  Congress,  Judiciary  and  Executive  during  the  twenty-five 
years  1870-1895,  and  find  little  but  damaged  reputation.  The  period 
was  poor  in  purpose  and  barren  in  results. 

Henry  Adams,  if  not  the  rose,  lived  as  near  it  as  any  politician, 
and  knew,  more  or  less,  all  the  men  in  any  way  prominent  at  Washing 
ton,  or  knew  all  about  them.  Among  them  in  his  opinion,  the  best 
equipped,  the  most  active-minded  and  most  industrious  was  Abram 
Hewitt,  who  sat  in  Congress  for  a  dozen  years,  between  1874  and  1886, 
sometimes  leading  the  House  and  always  wielding  influence  second  to 
none.  With  nobody  did  Adams  form  closer  or  longer  relations  than 
with  Mr.  Hewitt,  whom  he  regarded  as  the  most  useful  public  man  in 
Washington ;  and  he  was  the  more  struck  by  Hewitt's  saying,  at  the  end 
of  his  laborious  career  as  legislator,  that  he  left  behind  him  no  perma 
nent  result  except  the  Act  consolidating  the  Surveys.  Adams  knew  no 
other  man  who  had  done  so  much.  Hewitt's  nearest  rival  would  probably 
have  been  Senator  Pendleton  who  stood  father  to  Civil  Service  reform  in 
1882,  an  attempt  to  correct  a  vice  that  should  never  have  been  allowed  to 
be  born.  These  were  the  men  who  succeeded. 

The  press  stood  in  much  the  same  light.  No  editor,  no  political 
writer,  and  no  public  administrator  achieved  enough  good  reputation  to 
preserve  his  memory  for  twenty  years.  A  number  of  them  achieved  bad 


CHAOS  257 

reputations,  or  damaged  good  ones  that  had  heen  gained  in  the  civil  war. 
On  the  whole,  even  for  senators,  diplomates  and  cabinet  officers,  the 
period  was  wearisome  and  stale. 

None  of  Adams's  generation  profited  by  public  activity  unless  it 
were  William  C.  Whitney,  and  even  he  could  not  be  induced  to  return 
to  it.  Such  ambitions  as  these  were  out  of  one's  reach,  but  supposing 
one  tried  for  what  was  feasible,  attached  oneself  closely  to  the  Garfields, 
Arthurs,  Frelinghuysens,  Blaines,  Bayards  or  Whitneys,  who  happened 
to  hold  office ;  and  supposing  one  asked  for  the  mission  to  Belgium  or 
Portugal,  and  obtained  it ;  supposing  one  served  a  term  as  Assistant 
Secretary  or  Chief  of  Bureau ;  or,  finally,  supposing  one  had  gone  as 
sub-editor  on  the  New  York  Tribune  or  Times; — how  much  more 
education  would  one  have  gained  than  by  going  to  Harvard  College  ? 
These  questions  seemed  better  worth  an  answer  than  most  of  the 
questions  on  examination  papers  at  College  or  in  the  Civil  Service ;  all 
the  more  because  one  never  found  an  answer  to  them,  then  or  afterwards, 
and  because,  to  his  mind,  the  value  of  American  society  altogether 
was  mixed  up  with  the  value  of  Washington. 

At  first,  the  simple  beginner,  struggling  with  principles,  wanted  to 
throw  off  responsibility  on  the  American  people,  whose  bare  and 
toiling  shoulders  had  to  carry  the  load  of  every  social  or  political 
stupidity ;  but  the  American  people  had  no  more  to  do  with  it 
than  with  the  customs  of  Peking.  American  character  might  perhaps 
account  for  it,  but  what  accounted  for  American  character?  All 
Boston,  all  New  England,  and  all  respectable  New  York,  including 
Charles  Francis  Adams  the  father  and  Charles  Francis  Adams  the  son, 
agreed  that  Washington  was  no  place  for  a  respectable  young  man.  All 
Washington,  including  Presidents,  Cabinet  Officers,  Judiciary,  Senators, 
Congressmen  and  clerks,  expressed  the  same  opinion,  and  conspired  to 
drive  away  every  young  man  who  happened  to  be  there,  or  tried  to 
approach.  Not  one  young  man  of  promise  remained  in  the  government 
service.  All  drifted  into  opposition.  The  government  did  not  want 
them  in  Washington.  Adams's  case  was  perhaps  the  strongest  because 
he  thought  he  had  done  well.  He  was  forced  to  guess  it,  since  he 
knew  no  one  who  would  have  risked  so  extravagant  a  step  as  that  of 
encouraging  a  young  man  in  a  literary  career,  or  even  in  a  political 
17 


258  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

one ;  society  forbade  it,  as  well  as  residence  in  a  political  capital ;  but 
Harvard  College  must  have  seen  some  hope  for  him,  since  it  made  him 
Professor  against  his  will ;  even  the  publishers  and  editors  of  the  North 
American  Review  must  have  felt  a  certain  amount  of  confidence  in  him, 
since  they  put  the  Review  in  his  hands.  After  all,  the  Review  was  the 
first  literary  power  in  America,  even  though  it  paid  almost  as  little  in 
gold  as  the  United  States  Treasury.  The  degree  of  Harvard  College 
might  bear  a  value  as  ephemeral  as  the  commission  of  a  President  of 
the  United  States;  but  the  government  of  the  college,  measured  by 
money  alone,  and  patronage,  was  a  matter  of  more  importance  than 
that  of  some  branches  of  the  national  service.  In  social  position,  the 
college  was  the  superior  of  them  all  put  together.  In  knowledge,  she 
could  assert  no  superiority,  since  the  government  made  no  claims,  and 
prided  itself  on  ignorance.  The  service  of  Harvard  College  was  distinctly 
honorable ;  perhaps  the  most  honorable  in  America ;  and  if  Harvard 
College  thought  Henry  Adams  worth  employing  at  four  dollars  a  day, 
why  should  Washington  decline  his  services  when  he  asked  nothing? 
Why  should  he  be  dragged  from  a  career  he  liked  in  a  place  he  loved, 
into  a  career  he  detested,  in  a  place  and  climate  he  shunned?  Was  it 
enough  to  satisfy  him,  that  all  America  should  call  Washington  barren 
and  dangerous?  What  made  Washington  more  dangerous  than  New 
York? 

The  American  character  showed  singular  limitations  which  sometimes 
drove  the  student  of  civilised  man  to  despair.  Crushed  by  his  own 
ignorance, — lost  in  the  darkness  of  his  own  gropings, — the  scholar  finds 
himself  jostled  of  a  sudden  by  a  crowd  of  men  who  seem  to  him 
ignorant  that  there  is  a  thing  called  ignorance ;  who  have  forgotten  how 
to  amuse  themselves ;  who  cannot  even  understand  that  they  are  bored. 
The  American  thought  of  himself  as  a  restless,  pushing,  energetic, 
ingenious  person,  always  awake  and  trying  to  get  ahead  of  his  neighbors. 
Perhaps  this  idea  of  the  national  character  might  be  correct  for  New 
York  or  Chicago;  it  was  not  correct  for  Washington.  There  the 
American  showed  himself,  four  times  in  five,  as  a  quiet,  peaceful,  shy 
figure,  rather  in  the  mould  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  somewhat  sad,  some 
times  pathetic,  once  tragic ;  or  like  Grant,  inarticulate,  uncertain, 
distrustful  of  himself,  still  more  distrustful  of  others,  and  awed  by 


CHAOS  259 

money.  That  the  American,  by  temperament,  worked  to  excess,  was 
true ;  work  and  whiskey  were  his  stimulants ;  work  was  a  form  of  vice ; 
but  he  never  cared  much  for  money  or  power  after  he  earned  them. 
The  amusement  of  the  pursuit  was  all  the  amusement  he  got  from  it ; 
he  had  no  use  for  wealth.  Jim  Fisk  alone  seemed  to  know  what  he 
wanted ;  Jay  Gould  never  did.  At  Washington  one  met  mostly  such 
true  Americans,  but  if  one  wanted  to  know  them  better,  one  went  to 
study  them  in  Europe.  Bored,  patient,  helpless ;  pathetically  dependent 
on  his  wife  and  daughters ;  indulgent  to  excess ;  mostly  a  modest,  decent, 
excellent,  valuable  citizen ;  the  American  wras  to  be  met  at  every  railway 
station  in  Europe,  carefully  explaining  to  every  listener  that  the  happiest 
day  of  his  life  would  be  the  day  he  should  land  on  the  pier  at  New 
York.  He  was  ashamed  to  be  amused  ;  his  mind  no  longer  answered  to 
the  stimulus  of  variety ;  he  could  not  face  a  new  thought.  All  his 
immense  strength,  his  intense  nervous  energy,  his  keen  analytic  percep 
tions,  were  oriented  in  one  direction,  and  he  could  not  change  it. 
Congress  was  full  of  such  men ;  in  the  Senate,  Sumner  was  almost  the 
only  exception  ;  in  the  Executive,  Grant  and  Boutwell  were  varieties  of 
the  type, — political  specimens, — pathetic  in  their  helplessness  to  do 
anything  with  power  when  it  came  to  them.  They  knew  not  how  to 
amuse  themselves ;  they  could  not  conceive  how  other  people  were 
amused.  Work,  whiskey  and  cards  were  life.  The  atmosphere  of 
political  Washington  was  theirs, — or  was  supposed  by  the  outside  world 
to  be  in  their  control, — and  this  was  the  reason  why  the  outside  world 
judged  that  Washington  was  fatal  even  for  a  young  man  of  thirty-two, 
who  had  passed  through  the  whole  variety  of  temptations,  in  every 
capital  of  Europe,  for  a  dozen  years ;  who  never  played  cards,  and  who 
loathed  whiskey. 


CHAPTEE    XX 

1871 

Far  back  in  childhood,  among  its  earliest  memories,  Henry  Adams 
could  recall  his  first  visit  to  Harvard  College.  He  must  have  been  nine 
years  old  when  on  one  of  the  singularly  gloomy  winter  afternoons  which 
beguiled  Cambridgeport,  his  mother  drove  him  out  to  visit  his  aunt, 
Mrs.  Everett.  Edward  Everett  was  then  President  of  the  College  and 
lived  in  the  old  President's  House  on  Harvard  Square.  The  boy 
remembered  the  drawing-room,  on  the  left  of  the  hall-door,  in  which 
Mrs.  Everett  received  them.  He  remembered  a  marble  greyhound  in 
the  corner.  The  house  had  an  air  of  colonial  self-respect  that  impressed 
even  a  nine-year-old  child. 

When  Adams  closed  his  interview  with  President  Eliot,  he  asked 
the  Bursar  about  his  aunt's  old  drawing-room,  for  the  house  had  been 
turned  to  base  uses.  The  room  and  the  deserted  kitchen  adjacent  to  it 
were  to  let.  He  took  them.  Above  him,  his  brother  Brooks,  then  a 
law-student,  had  rooms,  with  a  private  staircase.  Opposite  was  J.  R. 
Dennett,  a  young  instructor  almost  as  literary  as  Adams  himself,  and 
more  rebellious  to  conventions.  Inquiry  revealed  a  boarding  table,  some 
where  in  the  neighborhood,  also  supposed  to  be  superior  in  its  class. 
Chauncey  Wright,  Francis  Wharton,  Dennett,  John  Fiske  or  their  equiva 
lents  in  learning  and  lecture,  were  seen  there,  among  three  or  four 
law  students  like  Brooks  Adams.  With  these  primitive  arrangements, 
all  of  them  had  to  be  satisfied.  The  standard  was  below  that  of 
Washington,  but  it  was  for  the  moment,  the  best. 

For  the  next  nine  months  the   Assistant   Professor   had   no   time   to 
waste    on    comforts    or    amusements.     He   exhausted   all   his    strength    in 
260 


FAILURE  261 

trying  to  keep  one  day  ahead  of  his  duties.  Often  the  stint  ran  on,  till 
night  and  sleep  ran  short.  He  could  not  stop  to  think  whether  he  were 
doing  the  work  rightly.  He  could  not  get  it  done  to  please  him,  rightly 
or  wrongly,  for  he  never  could  satisfy  himself  what  to  do. 

The  fault  he  had  found  with  Harvard  College  as  an  undergraduate 
must  have  been  more  or  less  just,  for  the  College  was  making  a  great 
effort  to  meet  these  self-criticisms,  and  had  elected  President  Eliot  in 
1869  to  carry  out  its  reforms.  Professor  Gurney  was  one  of  the 
leading  reformers,  and  had  tried  his  hand  on  his  own  department  of 
History.  The  two  full  Professors  of  History, — Torrey  and  Gurney, 
charming  men  both, — could  not  cover  the  ground.  Between  Gurney's 
classical  courses  and  Torrey's  modern  ones,  lay  a  gap  of  a  thousand 
years,  which  Adams  was  expected  to  fill.  The  students  had  already 
elected  courses  numbered  1,  2,  and  3,  without  knowing  what  was  to  be 
taught  or  who  was  to  teach.  If  their  new  professor  had  asked  what 
idea  was  in  their  minds,  they  must  have  replied  that  nothing  at  all 
was  in  their  minds,  since  their  professor  had  nothing  in  his,  and  down 
to  the  moment  he  took  his  chair  and  looked  his  scholars  in  the  face, 
he  had  given,  as  far  as  he  could  remember,  an  hour,  more  or  less,  to 
the  Middle  Ages. 

Not  that  his  ignorance  troubled  him!  He  knew  enough  to  be 
ignorant.  His  course  had  led  him  through  oceans  of  ignorance ;  he  had 
tumbled  from  one  ocean  into  another  till  he  had  learned  to  swim  ;  but 
even  to  him  education  was  a  serious  thing.  A  parent  gives  life,  but  as 
parent,  gives  no  more.  A  murderer  takes  life,  but  his  deed  stops  there. 
A  teacher  affects  eternity ;  he  can  never  tell  where  his  influence  stops. 
A  teacher  is  expected  to  teach  truth,  and  may  perhaps  flatter  himself 
that  he  does  so,  if  he  stops  with  the  alphabet  or  the  multiplication 
table,  as  a  mother  teaches  truth  by  making  her  child  eat  with  a  spoon  ; 
but  morals  are  quite  another  truth  and  philosophy  is  more  complex 
still.  A  teacher  must  either  treat  history  as  a  catalogue,  a  record,  a 
romance ;  or  as  an  evolution,  and  whether  he  affirms  or  denies  evolution, 
he  falls  into  all  the  burning  fagots  of  the  pit.  He  makes  of  his 
scholars  either  priests  or  atheists,  plutocrats  or  socialists,  judges  or 
anarchists,  almost  in  spite  of  himself.  In  essence  incoherent  and 
immoral,  history  had  either  to  be  taught  as  such, — or  falsified. 


262  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

Adams  wanted  to  do  neither.  He  had  no  theory  of  evolution  to 
teach,  and  could  not  make  the  facts  fit  one.  He  had  no  fancy  for  telling 
agreeable  tales  to  amuse  sluggish-minded  boys,  in  order  to  publish  them 
afterwards  as  lectures.  He  could  still  less  compel  his  students  to  learn 
the  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle  and  the  Venerable  Bede  by  heart.  He  saw 
no  relation  whatever  between  his  students  and  the  middle-ages  unless  it 
were  the  Church,  and  there  the  ground  was  particularly  dangerous.  He 
knew  better  than  though  he  were  a  professional  historian  that  the  man 
who  should  solve  the  riddle  of  the  middle-ages  and  bring  them  into  the 
line  of  evolution  from  past  to  present,  would  be  a  greater  man  than 
La  Marck  or  Linnaeus;  but  history  had  nowhere  broken  down  so 
pitiably  or  avowed  itself  so  hopelessly  bankrupt,  as  there.  Since  Gibbon, 
the  spectacle  was  almost  a  scandal.  History  had  lost  even  the  sense  of 
shame.  It  was  a  hundred  years  behind  the  experimental  sciences.  For 
all  serious  purpose,  it  was  less  instructive  than  Walter  Scott  and 
Alexandre  Dumas. 

All  this  was  without  offence  to  Sir  Henry  Maine,  Tyler,  McClennan, 
Buckle,  Auguste  Comte,  and  the  various  philosophers  who,  from  time 
to  time,  stirred  the  scandal,  and  made  it  more  scandalous.  No  doubt,  a 
teacher  might  make  some  use  of  these  writers  or  their  theories ;  but 
Adams  could  fit  them  into  no  theory  of  his  own.  The  College  expected 
him  to  pass  at  least  half  his  time  in  teaching  the  boys  a  few  elemen 
tary  dates  and  relations,  that  they  might  not  be  a  disgrace  to  the 
University.  This  was  formal ;  and  he  could  frankly  tell  the  boys  that, 
provided  they  passed  their  examinations,  they  might  get  their  facts  where 
they  liked,  and  use  the  teacher  only  for  questions.  The  only  privilege  a 
student  had  that  was  worth  his  claiming,  was  that  of  talking  to  the  profes 
sor,  and  the  professor  was  bound  to  encourage  it.  His  only  difficulty  on 
that  side  was  to  get  them  to  talk  at  all.  He  had  to  devise  schemes  to 
find  what  they  were  thinking  about,  and  induce  them  to  risk  criticism 
from  their  fellows.  Any  large  body  of  students  stifles  the  student. 
No  man  can  instruct  more  than  half  a  dozen  students  at  once.  The 
whole  problem  of  education  is  one  of  its  cost  in  money. 

The  lecture  system  to  classes  of  hundreds,  which  was  very  much 
that  of  the  twelfth  century,  suited  Adams  not  at  all.  Barred  from 
philosophy  and  bored  by  facts,  he  wanted  to  teach  his  students  something 


FAILURE  263 

not  wholly  useless.  The  number  of  students  whose  minds  were  of  an 
order  above  the  average  was,  in  his  experience,  barely  one  in  ten  ;  the 
rest  could  not  be  much  stimulated  by  any  inducements  a  teacher  could 
suggest.  All  were  respectable,  and  in  seven  years  of  contact,  Adams 
never  had  cause  to  complain  of  one ;  but  nine  minds  in  ten  take  polish 
passively,  like  a  hard  surface ;  only  the  tenth  sensibly  reacts. 

Adams  thought  that,  as  no  one  seemed  to  care  what  he  did,  he 
would  try  to  cultivate  this  tenth  mind,  though  necessarily  at  the  expense 
of  the  other  nine.  He  frankly  acted  on  the  rule  that  a  teacher,  who 
knew  nothing  of  his  subject,  should  not  pretend  to  teach  his  scholars 
what  he  did  not  know,  but  should  join  them  in  trying  to  find  the 
best  way  of  learning  it.  The  rather  pretentious  name  of  historical 
method  was  sometimes  given  to  this  process  of  instruction,  but  the  name 
smacked  of  German  pedagogy,  and  a  young  professor  who  respected 
neither  history  nor  method,  and  whose  sole  object  of  interest  was  his 
students'  minds,  fell  into  trouble  enough  without  adding  to  it  a  German 
parentage. 

The  task  was  doomed  to  failure  for  a  reason  which  he  could  not 
control.  Nothing  is  easier  than  to  teach  historical  method,  but,  when 
learned,  it  has  little  use.  History  is  a  tangled  skein  that  one  may 
take  up  at  any  point,  and  break  when  one  has  unravelled  enough ;  but 
complexity  precedes  evolution.  The  Pteraspis  grins  horribly  from  the 
closed  entrance.  One  may  not  begin  at  the  beginning,  and  one  has 
but  the  loosest  relative  truths  to  follow  up.  Adams  found  himself 
obliged  to  force  his  material  into  some  shape  to  which  a  method  could 
be  applied.  He  could  think  only  of  law  as  subject;  the  Law  School 
as  end;  and  he  took,  as  victims  of  his  experiment,  half  a  dozen  highly 
intelligent  young  men  who  seemed  willing  to  work.  The  course  began 
with  the  beginning,  as  far  as  the  books  showed  a  beginning  in  primitive 
man,  and  came  down  through  the  Salic  Franks  to  the  Norman  English. 
Since  no  text-books  existed,  the  professor  refused  to  profess,  knowing 
no  more  than  his  students,  and  the  students  read  what  they  pleased  and 
compared  their  results.  As  pedagagy,  nothing  could  be  more  triumphant. 
The  boys  worked  like  rabbits,  and  dug  holes  all  over  the  field  of  archaic 
society ;  no  difficulty  stopped  them  ;  unknown  languages  yielded  before 
their  attack,  and  customary  law  became  familiar  as  the  police  court ; 


264  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

undoubtedly  they  learned,  after  a  fashion,  to  chase  an  idea,  like  a  hare, 
through  as  dense  a  thicket  of  obscure  facts  as  they  were  likely  to  meet 
at  the  bar ;  but  their  teacher  knew  from  his  own  experience  that  his 
wonderful  method  led  nowhere,  and  they  would  have  to  exert  themselves 
to  get  rid  of  it  in  the  Law  School  even  more  than  they  exerted 
themselves  to  acquire  it  in  the  College.  Their  science  had  no  system, 
and  could  have  none,  since  its  subject  was  merely  antiquarian.  Try 
as  hard  as  he  might,  the  professor  could  not  make  it  actual. 

What  was  the  use  of  training  an  active  mind  to  waste  its  energy  ? 
The  experiments  might  in  time  train  Adams  as  a  Professor,  but  this 
result  was  still  less  to  his  taste.  He  wanted  to  help  the  boys  to  a 
career,  but  not  one  of  his  many  devices  to  stimulate  the  intellectual 
reaction  of  the  student's  mind  satisfied  either  him  or  the  students.  For 
himself  he  was  clear  that  the  fault  lay  in  the  system,  which  could  lead 
only  to  inertia.  Such  little  knowledge  of  himself  as  he  possessed 
warranted  him  in  affirming  that  his  mind  required  conflict,  competition, 
contradiction  even  more  than  that  of  the  student.  He  too  wanted  a 
rank-list  to  set  his  name  upon.  His  reform  of  the  system  would  have 
begun  in  the  lecture-room  at  his  own  desk.  He  would  have  seated  a 
rival  Assistant  Professor  opposite  him,  whose  business  should  be  strictly 
limited  to  expressing  opposite  views.  Nothing  short  of  this  would  ever 
interest  either  the  professor  or  the  student ;  but  of  all  University  freaks,  no 
irregularity  shocked  the  intellectual  atmosphere  so  much  as  contradiction 
or  competition  between  teachers.  In  that  respect  the  thirteenth-century 
University  system  was  worth  the  whole  teaching  of  the  modern  school. 

All  his  pretty  efforts  to  create  conflicts  of  thought  among  his 
students  failed  for  want  of  system.  None  met  the  needs  of  instruction. 
In  spite  of  President  Eliot's  reforms  and  his  steady,  generous,  liberal 
support,  the  system  remained  costly,  clumsy  and  futile.  The  Univer 
sity, — as  far  as  it  was  represented  by  Henry  Adams — produced  at  great 
waste  of  time  and  money  results  not  worth  reaching. 

He  made  use  of  his  lost  two  years  of  German  schooling  to  inflict 
their  results  on  his  students,  and  by  a  happy  chance  he  was  in  the  full 
tide  of  fashion.  The  Germans  were  crowning  their  new  emperor  at 
Versailles,  and  surrounding  his  head  with  a  halo  of  Pepins  and 
Merwigs,  Othos  and  Barbarossas.  James  Bryce  had  even  discovered 


FAILURE  265 

the  Holy  Roman  Empire.  Germany  was  never  so  powerful,  and  the 
Assistant  Professor  of  History  had  nothing  else  as  his  stock  in  trade. 
He  imposed  Germany  on  his  scholars  with  a  heavy  hand.  He  was 
rejoiced ;  but  he  sometimes  doubted  whether  they  should  be  grateful.  On 
the  whole,  he  was  content  neither  with  what  he  had  taught  nor  with 
the  way  he  had  taught  it.  The  seven  years  he  passed  in  teaching 
seemed  to  him  lost. 

The  uses  of  adversity  are  beyond  measure  strange.  As  a  Professor,  he 
regarded  himself  as  a  failure.  Without  false  modesty  he  thought  he 
knew  what  he  meant.  He  had  tried  a  great  many  experiments,  and 
wholly  succeeded  in  none.  He  had  succumbed  to  the  weight  of  the 
system.  He  had  accomplished  nothing  that  he  tried  to  do.  He 
regarded  the  system  as  wrong ;  more  mischievous  to  the  teachers  than 
to  the  students ;  fallacious  from  the  beginning  to  end.  He  quitted  the 
University  at  last,  in  1877,  with  a  feeling,  that,  if  it  had  not  been  for 
the  invariable  courtesy  and  kindness  shown  by  everyone  in  it,  from  the 
President  to  the  injured  students,  he  should  be  sore  at  his  failure. 

These  were  his  own  feelings,  but  they  seemed  not  to  be  felt  in  the 
College.  With  the  same  perplexing  impartiality  that  had  so  much 
disconcerted  him  in  his  undergraduate  days,  the  College  insisted  on 
expressing  an  opposite  view.  John  Fiske  went  so  far  in  his  notice  of 
the  family  in  Appleton's  Cyclopedia,  as  to  say  that  Henry  had  left  a 
great  reputation  at  Harvard  College;  which  was  a  proof  of  John  Fiske's 
personal  regard  that  Adams  heartily  returned ;  and  set  the  kind  expres 
sion  down  to  camaraderie.  The  case  was  different  when  President 
Eliot  himself  hinted  that  Adams's  services  merited  recognition.  Adams 
could  have  wept  on  his  shoulder  in  hysterics,  so  grateful  was  he  for  the 
rare  good-will  that  inspired  the  compliment ;  but  he  could  not  allow 
the  College  to  think  that  he  esteemed  himself  entitled  to  distinc 
tion.  He  knew  better,  and  his  was  among  the  failures  which  were 
respectable  enough  to  deserve  self-respect.  Yet  nothing  in  the  vanity 
of  life  struck  him  as  more  humiliating  than  that  Harvard  College, 
which  he  had  persistently  criticised,  abused,  abandoned  and  neglected, 
should  alone  have  offered  him  a  dollar,  an  office,  an  encouragement  or  a 
kindness.  Harvard  College  might  have  its  faults,  but  at  least  it  redeemed 
America,  since  it  was  true  to  its  own. 


266  THE  EDUCATION  OP   HENRY  ADAMS 

The  only  part  of  education  that  the  professor  thought  a  success  was 
the  students.  He  found  them  excellent  company.  Cast  more  or  less  in 
the  same  mould,  without  violent  emotions  or  sentiment,  and,  except  for 
the  veneer  of  American  habits,  ignorant  of  all  that  man  had  ever 
thought  or  hoped,  their  minds  burst  open  like  flowers  at  the  sun-light 
of  a  suggestion.  They  were  quick  to  respond ;  plastic  to  a  mould ;  and 
incapable  of  fatigue.  Their  faith  in  education  was  so  full  of  pathos  that 
one  dared  not  ask  them  what  they  thought  they  could  do  with  education 
when  they  got  it.  Adams  did  put  the  question  to  one  of  them,  and  was 
surprised  at  the  answer :  "  The  degree  of  Harvard  College  is  worth 
money  to  me  in  Chicago."  This  reply  upset  his  experience ;  for  the 
degree  of  Harvard  College  had  been  rather  a  drawback  to  a  young  man 
in  Boston  and  Washington.  So  far  as  it  went  the  answer  was  good,  and 
settled  one's  doubts.  Adams  knew  no  better,  although  he  had  given 
twenty  years  to  pursuing  the  same  education,  and  was  no  nearer  a  result 
than  they.  He  still  had  to  take  for  granted  many  things  that  they 
need  not, — among  the  rest,  that  his  teaching  did  them  more  good  than 
harm.  In  his  own  opinion  the  greatest  good  he  could  do  them  was  to 
hold  his  tongue.  They  needed  much  faith  then ;  they  were  likely  to 
need  more  if  they  lived  long. 

He  never  knew  whether  his  colleagues  shared  his  doubts  about  their 
own  utility.  Unlike  himself,  they  knew  more  or  less  their  business. 
He  could  not  tell  his  scholars  that  history  glowed  with  social  virtue ; — 
the  Professor  of  Chemistry  cared  not  a  chemical  atom  whether  society 
was  virtuous  or  not.  Adams  could  not  pretend  that  mediaeval  society 
proved  evolution ; — the  Professor  of  Physics  smiled  at  evolution.  Adams 
was  glad  to  dwell  on  the  virtues  of  the  Church  and  the  triumphs  of 
its  art ; — the  Professor  of  Political  Economy  had  to  treat  them  as  waste 
of  force.  They  knew  what  they  had  to  teach ;  he  did  not.  They 
might  perhaps  be  frauds  without  knowing  it ;  but  he  knew  certainly 
nothing  else  of  himself.  He  could  teach  his  students  nothing ;  he  was 
only  educating  himself  at  their  cost. 

Education,  like  politics,  is  a  rough  affair,  and  every  instructor  has 
to  shut  his  eyes  and  hold  his  tongue  as  though  he  were  a  priest.  The 
students  alone  satisfied.  They  thought  they  gained  something.  Perhaps 
they  did,  for  even  in  America  and  in  the  twentieth  century,  life  could 


FAILURE  267 

not  be  wholly  industrial.  Adams  fervently  hoped  that  they  might  remain 
content ;  but  supposing  twenty  years  more  to  pass,  and  they  should  turn 
on  him  as  fiercely  as  he  had  turned  on  his  old  instructors, — what  answer 
could  he  make?  The  College  had  pleaded  guilty,  and  tried  to  reform. 
He  had  pleaded  guilty  from  the  start,  and  his  reforms  had  failed  before 
those  of  the  College. 

The  lecture-room  was  futile  enough,  but  the  faculty-room  was  worse. 
American  society  feared  total  wreck  in  the  maelstrom  of  political  and 
corporate  administration  but  it  could  not  look  for  help  to  college  dons. 
Adams  knew,  in  that  capacity,  both  Congressmen  and  professors,  and 
he  preferred  Congressmen.  The  same  failure  marked  the  society  of  a 
College.  Several  score  of  the  best  educated,  most  agreeable  and  personally 
the  most  sociable  people  in  America  united  in  Cambridge  to  make  a 
social  desert  that  would  have  starved  a  polar  bear.  The  liveliest  and 
most  agreeable  of  men, — James  Russell  Lowell,  Francis  J.  Child,  Louis 
Agassiz,  his  son  Alexander,  Gurney,  John  Fiske,  William  James,  and  a 
dozen  others, — who  would  have  made  the  joy  of  London  or  Paris,  tried 
their  best  to  break  out  and  be  like  other  men  in  Cambridge  and 
Boston,  but  society  called  them  professors,  and  professors  they  had  to 
be.  While  all  these  brilliant  men  were  greedy  for  companionship,  all 
were  famished  for  want  of  it.  Society  was  a  faculty-meeting  without 
business.  The  elements  were  there ;  but  society  cannot  be  made  up  of 
elements ; — people  who  are  expected  to  be  silent  unless  they  have 
observations  to  make ; — and  all  the  elements  are  bound  to  remain  apart 
if  required  to  make  observations. 

Thus  it  turned  out  that  of  all  his  many  educations,  Adams  thought 
that  of  school-teacher  the  thinnest.  Yet  he  was  forced  to  admit  that 
the  education  of  an  editor,  in  some  ways,  was  thinner  still.  The  editor  had 
barely  time  to  edit ;  he  had  none  to  write.  If  copy  fell  short,  he  was 
obliged  to  scribble  a  book-review  on  the  virtues  of  the  Anglo-Saxons  or 
the  vices  of  the  Popes ;  for  he  knew  more  about  Edward  the  Confes 
sor  or  Boniface  VIII  than  he  did  about  President  Grant.  For  seven 
years  he  wrote  nothing;  the  Review  lived  on  his  brother  Charles's 
railway  articles.  The  editor  could  help  others  but  could  do  nothing  for 
himself.  As  a  writer,  he  was  totally  forgotten  by  the  time  he  had 
been  an  editor  for  twelve  months.  As  editor  he  could  find  no  writer  to 


268  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

take  his  place  for  politics  and  affairs  of  current  concern.  The  Review 
became  chiefly  historical.  Russell  Lowell  and  Frank  Palgrave  helped 
him  to  keep  it  literary.  The  editor  was  a  helpless  drudge  whose 
successes,  if  he  made  any,  belonged  to  his  writers ;  but  whose  failures 
might  easily  bankrupt  himself.  Such  a  Review  may  be  made  a  sink 
of  money  with  captivating  ease.  The  secrets  of  success  as  an  editor 
were  easily  learned ;  the  highest  was  that  of  getting  advertisements.  Ten 
pages  of  advertising  made  an  editor  a  success ;  five  marked  him  as  a 
failure.  The  merits  or  demerits  of  his  literature  had  little  to  do  with 
his  results  except  when  they  led  to  adversity. 

A  year  or  two  of  education  as  editor  satiated  most  of  his  appetite 
for  that  career  as  a  profession.  After  a  very  slight  experience,  he  said 
no  more  on  the  subject.  He  felt  willing  to  let  anyone  edit,  if  he 
himself  might  write.  Vulgarly  speaking,  it  was  a  dog's  life  when  it 
did  not  succeed,  and  little  better  when  it  did.  A  professor  had  at 
least  the  pleasure  of  associating  with  his  students ;  an  editor  lived  the 
life  of  an  owl.  A  professor  commonly  became  a  pedagogue  or  a  pedant; 
an  editor  became  an  authority  on  advertising.  On  the  whole,  Adams 
preferred  his  attic  in  Washington.  He  was  educated  enough.  Ignorance 
paid  better,  for  at  least  it  earned  fifty  dollars  a  month. 

With  this  result  Henry  Adams's  education,  at  his  entry  into  life, 
stopped,  and  his  life  began.  He  had  to  take  that  life  as  he  best  could, 
with  such  accidental  education  as  luck  had  given  him ;  but  he  held 
that  it  was  wrong,  and  that,  if  he  were  to  begin  again,  he  would  do  it 
on  a  better  system.  He  thought  he  knew  nearly  what  system  to  pursue. 
At  that  time  Alex.  Agassiz  had  not  yet  got  his  head  above  water  so  far 
as  to  serve  for  a  model,  as  he  did  twenty  or  thirty  years  afterwards ; 
but  the  editorship  of  the  North  American  Review  had  one  solitary  merit ; 
it  made  the  editor  acquainted  at  a  distance  with  almost  everyone  in  the 
country  who  could  write  or  who  could  be  the  cause  of  writing.  Adams 
was  vastly  pleased  to  be  received  among  these  clever  people  as  one  of 
themselves,  and  felt  always  a  little  surprised  at  their  treating  him  as  an 
equal,  for  they  all  had  education ;  but  among  them,  only  one  stood  out 
in  extraordinary  prominence  as  the  type  and  model  of  what  Adams 
would  have  liked  to  be,  and  of  what  the  American,  as  he  conceived, 
should  have  been  and  was  not. 


FAILURE  269 

Thanks  to  the  article  on  Sir  Charles  Lyell,  Adams  passed  for  a 
friend  of  geologists,  and  the  extent  of  his  knowledge  mattered  much 
less  to  them  than  the  extent  of  his  friendship,  for  geologists  were  as  a 
class  not  much  better  off  than  himself,  and  friends  were  sorely  few. 
One  of  his  friends  from  earliest  childhood,  and  nearest  neighbor  in 
Quincy,  Frank  Emmons,  had  become  a  geologist  and  joined  the  Fortieth 
Parallel  Survey  under  government.  At  Washington  in  the  winter  of 
1869-70,  Emmons  had  invited  Adams  to  go  out  with  him  on  one  of  the 
field-parties  in  summer.  Of  course  when  Adams  took  the  Review  he  put 
it  at  the  service  of  the  Survey,  and  regretted  only  that  he  could  not 
do  more.  When  the  first  year  of  professing  and  editing  was  at  last 
over,  and  his  July  North  American  appeared,  he  drew  a  long  breath  of 
relief,  and  took  the  next  train  for  the  west.  Of  his  year's  work  he 
was  no  judge.  He  had  become  a  small  spring  in  a  large  mechanism,  and 
his  work  counted  only  in  the  sum ;  but  he  had  been  treated  civilly  by 
everybody,  and  he  felt  at  home  even  in  Boston.  Putting  in  his  pocket 
the  July  number  of  the  North  American,  with  a  notice  of  the  Fortieth 
Parallel  Survey  by  Professor  J.  D.  Whitney,  he  started  for  the  plains 
and  the  Rocky  Mountains. 

In  the  year  1871,  the  west  was  still  fresh,  and  the  Union  Pacific 
was  young.  Beyond  the  Missouri  river,  one  felt  the  atmosphere  of 
Indians  and  buffalos.  One  saw  the  last  vestiges  of  an  old  education, 
worth  studying  if  one  would ;  but  it  was  not  that  which  Adams 
sought ;  rather,  he  came  out  to  spy  upon  the  land  of  the  future.  The 
Survey  occasionally  borrowed  troopers  from  the  nearest  station  in  case  of 
happening  on  hostile  Indians,  but  otherwise  the  topographers  and  geolo 
gists  thought  more  about  minerals  than  about  Sioux.  They  held  under 
their  hammers  a  thousand  miles  of  mineral  country  with  all  its  riddles 
to  solve,  and  its  stores  of  possible  wealth  to  mark.  They  felt  the 
future  in  their  hands. 

Emmons's  party  was  out  of  reach  in  the  Uintahs,  but  Arnold 
Hague's  had  come  in  to  Laramie  for  supplies,  and  they  took  charge  of 
Adams  for  a  time.  Their  wanderings  or  adventures  matter  nothing  to 
the  story  of  education.  They  were  all  hardened  mountaineers  and 
surveyors  who  took  everything  for  granted,  and  spared  each  other  the 
most  wearisome  bore  of  English  and  Scotch  life,  the  stories  of  the  big 


270  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENKY  ADAMS 

game  they  killed.  A  bear  was  an  occasional  amusement ;  a  wapiti  was 
a  constant  necessity ;  but  the  only  wild  animal  dangerous  to  man  was  a 
rattle-snake  or  a  skunk.  One  shot  for  amusement,  but  one  had  other 
matters  to  talk  about. 

Adams  enjoyed  killing  big  game,  but  loathed  the  labor  of  cutting 
it  up ;  so  that  he  rarely  unslung  the  little  carbine  he  was  in  a  manner 
required  to  carry.  On  the  other  hand  he  liked  to  wander  off  alone  on 
his  mule,  and  pass  the  day  fishing  a  mountain  stream  or  exploring  a 
valley.  One  morning  when  the  party  was  camped  high  above  Estes 
Park,  on  the  flank  of  Long's  Peak,  he  borrowed  a  rod,  and  rode  down 
over  a  rough  trail  into  Estes  Park,  for  some  trout.  The  day  was  fine, 
and  hazy  with  the  smoke  of  forest  fires  a  thousand  miles  away ;  the 
park  stretched  its  English  beauties  off  to  the  base  of  its  bordering 
mountains  in  natural  landscape  and  archaic  peace ;  the  stream  was  just 
fishy  enough  to  tempt  lingering  along  its  banks.  Hour  after  hour  the 
sun  moved  westward  and  the  fish  moved  eastward,  or  disappeared 
altogether,  until  at  last  when  the  fisherman  cinched  his  mule,  sunset  was 
nearer  than  he  thought.  Darkness  caught  him  before  he  could  catch  his 
trail.  Not  caring  to  tumble  into  some  fifty-foot  hole,  he  "  allowed "  he 
was  lost,  and  turned  back.  In  half  an  hour  he  was  out  of  the  hills, 
and  under  the  stars  of  Estes  Park,  but  he  saw  no  prospect  of  supper 
or  of  bed. 

Estes  Park  was  large  enough  to  serve  for  a  bed  on  a  summer 
night  for  an  army  of  professors,  but  the  supper  question  offered  diffi 
culties.  There  was  but  one  cabin  in  the  Park,  near  its  entrance,  and  he 
felt  no  great  confidence  in  finding  it,  but  he  thought  his  mule  cleverer 
than  himself,  and  the  dim  lines  of  mountain  crest  against  the  stars 
fenced  his  range  of  error.  The  patient  mule  plodded  on  without  other 
road  than  the  gentle  slope  of  the  ground,  and  some  two  hours  must 
have  passed  before  a  light  showed  in  the  distance.  As  the  mule  came 
up  to  the  cabin  door,  two  or  three  men  came  out  to  see  the  stranger. 

One  of  these  men  was  Clarence  King  on  his  way  up  to  the  camp. 
Adams  fell  into  his  arms.  As  with  most  friendships,  it  was  never  a 
matter  of  growth  or  doubt.  Friends  are  born  in  archaic  horizons;  they 
were  shaped  with  the  Pteraspis  in  Siluria:  they  have  nothing  to  do 
with  the  accident  of  space.  King  had  come  up  that  day  from  Greeley 


FAILURE  271 

in  a  light  four-wheeled  buggy,  over  a  trail  hardly  fit  for  a  commis 
sariat  mule,  as  Adams  had  reason  to  know  since  he  went  back  in  the 
buggy.  In  the  cabin,  luxury  provided  a  room  and  one  bed  for  guests. 
They  shared  the  room  and  the  bed,  and  talked  till  far  towards  dawn. 

King  had  everything  to  interest  and  delight  Adams.  He  knew  more 
than  Adams  did  of  art  and  poetry ;  he  knew  America,  especially  west 
of  the  hundredth  meridian,  better  than  anyone ;  he  knew  the  professor 
by  heart,  and  he  knew  the  Congressman  better  than  he  did  the 
professor.  He  knew  even  women ;  even  the  American  woman ;  even 
the  New  York  woman,  which  is  saying  much.  Incidentally  he  knew 
more  practical  geology  than  was  good  for  him,  and  saw  ahead  at  least 
one  generation  further  than  the  text-books.  That  he  saw  right  was  a 
different  matter.  Since  the  beginning  of  time  no  man  has  lived  who  is 
known  to  have  seen  right ;  the  charm  of  King  was  that  he  saw  what 
others  did  and  a  great  deal  more.  His  wit  and  humor ;  his  bubbling 
energy  which  swept  everyone  into  the  current  of  his  interest ;  his 
personal  charm  of  youth  and  manners ;  his  faculty  of  giving  and  taking, 
profusely,  lavishly,  whether  in  thought  or  in  money  as  though  he  were 
nature  herself,  marked  him  almost  alone  among  Americans.  He  had  in 
him  something  of  the  Greek, — a  touch  of  Alcibiades  or  Alexander. 
One  Clarence  King  only  existed  in  the  world. 

A  new  friend  is  always  a  miracle,  but  at  thirty-three  years  old, 
such  a  bird  of  paradise  rising  in  the  sage-brush  was  an  avatar.  One 
friend  in  a  life-time  is  much ;  two  are  many  ;  three  are  hardly  possible. 
Friendship  needs  a  certain  parallelism  of  life,  a  community  of  thought,  a 
rivalry  of  aim.  King,  like  Adams,  and  all  their  generation,  was  at 
that  moment  passing  the  critical  point  of  his  career.  The  one,  coming 
from  the  west,  saturated  with  the  sunshine  of  the  Sierras,  met  the  other, 
drifting  from  the  east,  drenched  in  the  fogs  of  London,  and  both  had 
the  same  problems  to  handle, — the  same  stock  of  implements, — the  same 
field  to  work  in ;  above  all,  the  same  obstacles  to  overcome. 

As  a  companion,  King's  charm  was  great,  but  this  was  not  the 
quality  that  so  much  attracted  Adams,  nor  could  he  affect  even  distant 
rivalry  on  this  ground.  Adams  could  never  tell  a  story,  chiefly  because 
he  always  forgot  it ;  and  he  was  never  guilty  of  a  witticism,  unless  by 
accident.  King  and  the  Fortieth  Parallel  influenced  him  in  a  way  far 


272  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

more  vital.  The  lines  of  their  lives  converged,  but  King  had  moulded 
and  directed  his  life  logically,  scientifically,  as  Adams  thought  American  life 
should  be  directed.  He  had  given  himself  education  all  of  a  piece,  yet 
broad.  Standing  in  the  middle  of  his  career,  where  their  paths  at  last 
came  together,  he  could  look  back  and  look  forward  on  a  straight  line, 
with  scientific  knowledge  for  its  base.  Adams's  life,  past  or  future, 
was  a  succession  of  violent  breaks  or  waves,  with  no  base  at  all.  King's 
abnormal  energy  had  already  won  him  great  success.  None  of  his 
contemporaries  had  done  so  much,  singlehanded,  or  were  likely  to  leave 
so  deep  a  trail.  He  had  managed  to  induce  Congress  to  adopt  almost 
its  first  modern  act  of  legislation.  He  had  organised,  as  a  civil — not 
military — measure,  a  government  Survey.  He  had  paralleled  the  Con 
tinental  Railway  in  Geology ;  a  feat  as  yet  unequalled  by  other  governments 
which  had  as  a  rule  no  continents  to  survey.  He  was  creating  one  of  the 
classic  scientific  works  of  the  century.  The  chances  were  great  that  he 
could,  whenever  he  chose  to  quit  the  government  service,  take  the  pick 
of  the  gold  and  silver,  copper  or  coal,  and  build  up  his  fortune  as  he 
pleased.  Whatever  prize  he  wanted  lay  ready  for  him, — scientific,  social, 
literary,  political, — and  he  know  how  to  take  them  in  turn.  With 
ordinary  luck  he  would  die  at  eighty  the  richest  and  most  many-sided 
genius  of  his  day. 

So  little  egoistic  he  was  that  none  of  his  friends  felt  envy  of  his 
extraordinary  superiority,  but  rather  grovelled  before  it,  so  that  women 
were  jealous  of  the  power  he  had  over  men;  but  women  were  many  and 
Kings  were  one.  The  men  worshiped  not  so  much  their  friend,  as  the 
ideal  American  they  all  wanted  to  be.  The  women  were  jealous  because, 
at  heart,  King  had  no  faith  in  the  American  woman ;  he  loved  types 
more  robust. 

The  young  men  of  the  Fortieth  Parallel  had  California!!  instincts  ; 
they  were  brothers  of  Bret  Harte.  They  felt  no  leanings  towards 
the  simple  uniformities  of  Lyell  and  Darwin ;  they  saw  little  proof  of 

slight  and    imperceptible    changes ;  to  them,  catastrophe  was  the  law   of 

* 

change ;  they  cared  little  for  simplicity  and  much  for  complexity ;  but 
it  was  the  complexity  of  nature,  not  of  New  York  or  even  of  the  Missis 
sippi  Valley,  King  loved  paradox ;  he  started  them  like  rabbits,  and 
cared  for  them  no  longer,  when  caught  or  lost ;  but  they  delighted 


FAILURE  273 

Adams,  for  they  helped,  among  other  things,  to  persuade  him  that  history 
was  more  amusing  than  science.  The  only  question  left  open  to  doubt 
was  their  relative  money  value. 

In  Emmons's  camp,  far  up  in  the  Uintahs,  these  talks  were  continued 
till  the  frosts  became  sharp  in  the  mountains.  History  and  science  spread 
out  in  personal  horizons  towards  goals  no  longer  far  away.  No  more 
education  was  possible  for  either  man.  Such  as  they  were,  they  had 
got  to  stand  the  chances  of  the  world  they  lived  in ;  and  when  Adams 
started  back  to  Cambridge,  to  take  up  again  the  humble  tasks  of 
schoolmaster  and  editor  he  was  harnessed  to  his  cart.  Education, 
systematic  or  accidental,  had  done  its  worst.  Henceforth  he  went  on, 
submissive. 


18 


CHAPTER    XXI 

1892 

Once  more !  this  is  a  story  of  education,  not  of  adventure !  It  is 
meant  to  help  young  men, — or  such  as  have  intelligence  enough  to 
seek  help, — but  it  is  not  meant  to  amuse  them.  What  one  did, — or 
did  not  do, — with  one's  education,  after  getting  it,  need  trouble  the 
inquirer  in  no  way ;  it  is  a  personal  matter  which  would  only  confuse 
him.  Perhaps  Henry  Adams  was  not  worth  educating ;  most  keen 
judges  incline  to  think  that  barely  one  man  in  a  hundred  owns  a  mind 
capable  of  reacting  to  any  purpose  on  the  forces  that  surround  him, 
and  fully  half  of  these  react  wrongly.  The  object  of  education  for  that 
mind  should  be  the  teaching  itself  how  to  react  with  vigor  and  economy. 
No  doubt  the  world  at  large  will  always  lag  so  far  behind  the  active 
mind  as  to  make  a  soft  cushion  of  inertia  to  drop  upon,  as  it  did  for 
Henry  Adams ;  but  education  should  try  to  lessen  the  obstacles,  diminish 
the  friction,  invigorate  the  energy,  and  should  train  minds  to  react,  not 
at  haphazard  but  by  choice,  on  the  lines  of  force  that  attract  their 
world.  What  one  knows  is,  in  youth,  of  little  moment ;  they  know 
enough  who  know  how  to  learn.  Throughout  human  history  the  waste 
of  mind  has  been  appalling,  and,  as  this  story  is  meant  to  show,  society 
has  conspired  to  promote  it.  No  doubt  the  teacher  is  the  worst  criminal, 
but  the  world  stands  behind  him  and  drags  the  student  from  his  course. 
The  moral  is  stentorian.  Only  the  most  energetic,  the  most  highly 
fitted,  and  the  most  favored  have  overcome  the  friction  or  the  viscosity 
of  inertia,  and  these  were  compelled  to  waste  three-fourths  of  their 
energy  in  doing  it. 

Fit  or  unfit,  Henry  Adams  stopped  his  own  education  in    1871,  and 
274 


TWENTY   YEARS   AFTER  275 

began  to  apply  it  for  practical  uses,  like  his  neighbors.  At  the  end  of 
twenty  years,  he  found  that  he  had  finished,  and  could  sum  up  the 
result.  He  had  no  complaint  to  make  against  man  or  woman.  They 
had  all  treated  him  kindly ;  he  had  never  met  with  ill-will,  ill-temper 
or  even  ill-manners,  or  known  a  quarrel.  He  had  never  seen  serious 
dishonesty  or  ingratitude.  He  had  found  a  readiness  in  the  young  to 
respond  to  suggestion  that  seemed  to  him  far  beyond  all  he  had  reason 
to  expect.  Considering  the  stock  complaints  against  the  world,  he  could 
not  understand  why  he  had  nothing  to  complain  of. 

During  these  twenty  years  he  had  done  as  much  work,  in  quantity, 
as  his  neighbors  wanted ;  more  than  they  would  ever  stop  to  look  at, 
and  more  than  his  share.  Merely  in  print,  he  thought  altogether  ridicu 
lous  the  number  of  volumes  he  counted  on  the  shelves  of  public  libraries. 
He  had  no  notion  whether  they  served  a  useful  purpose ;  he  had  worked 
in  the  dark ;  but  so  had  most  of  his  friends,  even  the  artists,  none  of 
whom  held  any  lofty  opinion  of  their  success  in  raising  the  standards 
of  society,  or  felt  profound  respect  for  the  methods  or  manners  of  their 
time,  at  home  or  abroad,  but  all  of  whom  had  tried,  in  a  way,  to  hold  the 
standard  up.  The  effort  had  been,  for  the  older  generation,  exhausting, 
as  one  could  see  in  the  Hunts ;  but  the  generation  after  1870  made  more 
figure,  not  in  proportion  to  public  wealth  or  in  the  census,  but  in  their 
own  self-assertion.  A  fair  number  of  the  men  who  were  born  in  the 
thirties  had  won  names  : — Phillips  Brooks ;  Bret  Harte ;  Henry  James  ; 
H.  H.  Richardson  ;  John  LaFarge ;  and  the  list  might  be  made  fairly 
long  if  it  were  worth  while ;  but  from  their  school  had  sprung  others, 
like  Augustus  St.  Gaudens,  M'Kim,  Stanford  White,  and  scores  born  in 
the  forties,  who  counted  as  force  even  in  the  mental  inertia  of  sixty  or 
eighty  million  people.  Among  all  these  Clarence  King,  John  Hay 
and  Henry  Adams  had  led  modest  existences,  trying  to  fill  in  the  social 
gaps  of  a  class  which,  as  yet,  showed  but  thin  ranks  and  little  cohesion 
The  combination  offered  no  very  glittering  prizes,  but  they  pursued  it 
for  twenty  years  with  as  much  patience  and  effort  as  though  'it  led  to 
fame  or  power,  until,  at  last,  Henry  Adams  thought  his  own  duties 
sufficiently  performed  and  his  account  with  society  settled.  He  had  en 
joyed  his  life  amazingly,  and  would  not  have  exchanged  it  for  any  other 
that  came  in  his  way ;  he  was,  or  thought  he  was,  perfectly  satisfied  with 


276  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

it ;  but  for  reasons  that  had  nothing  to  do  with  education,  he  was  tired  ; 
his  nervous  energy  ran  low;  and,  like  a  horse  that  wears  out,  he  quitted 
the  race-course,  left  the  stable,  and  sought  pastures  as  far  as  possible 
from  the  old.  Education  had  ended  in  1871 ;  life  was  complete  in 
1890 ;  the  rest  mattered  so  little ! 

As  had  happened  so  often,  he  found  himself  in  London  when  the 
question  of  return  imposed  its  verdict  on  him  after  much  fruitless  effort 
to  rest  elsewhere.  The  time  was  the  month  of  January,  1892 ;  he  was 
alone,  in  hospital,  in  the  gloom  of  midwinter.  He  was  close  on  his 
fifty-fourth  birthday,  and  Pall  Mall  had  forgotten  him  as  completely  as 
it  had  forgotten  his  betters.  He  had  not  seen  London  for  a  dozen  years, 
and  was  rather  amused  to  have  only  a  bed  for  a  world  and  a  familiar 
black  fog  for  horizon.  The  coal-fire  smelt  homelike ;  the  fog  had  a 
fruity  taste  of  youth  ;  anything  was  better  than  being  turned  out  into 
the  wastes  of  Wigmore  Street.  He  could  always  amuse  himself  by 
living  over  his  youth,  and  driving  once  more  down  Oxford  Street  in 
1858,  with  life  before  him  to  imagine  far  less  amusing  than  it  had 
turned  out  to  be. 

The  future  attracted  him  less.  Lying  there  for  a  week  he  reflected 
on  what  he  could  do  next.  He  had  just  come  up  from  the  South  Seas 
with  John  La  Farge,  who  had  reluctantly  crawled  away  towards  New 
York  to  resume  the  grinding  routine  of  studio-work  at  an  age  when  life 
runs  low.  Adams  would  rather,  as  choice,  have  gone  back  to  the  east, 
if  it  were  only  to  sleep  forever  in  the  trade-winds  under  the  southern 
stars,  wandering  over  the  dark  purple  ocean,  with  its  purple  sense  of 
solitude  and  void.  Not  that  he  liked  the  sensation,  but  that  it  was  the 
most  unearthly  he  had  felt.  He  had  not  yet  happened  on  Rudyard 
Kipling's  Mandalay,  but  he  knew  the  poetry  before  he  knew  the  poem, 
like  millions  of  wanderers,  who  have  perhaps  alone  felt  the  world  exactly 
as  it  is.  Nothing  attracted  him  less  than  the  idea  of  beginning  a  new 
education.  The  old  one  had  been  poor  enough ;  any  new  one  could  only 
add  to  its  faults.  Life  had  been  cut  in  halves,  and  the  old  half  had 
passed  away,  education  and  all,  leaving  no  stock  to  graft  on. 

The  new  world  he  faced  in  Paris  and  London  seemed  to  him 
fantastic.  Willing  to  admit  it  real  in  the  sense  of  having  some  kind  of 
existence  outside  his  own  mind,  he  could  not  admit  it  reasonable.  In 


TWENTY  YEARS  AFTER  277 

Paris,  his  heart  sank  to  mere  pulp  before  the  dismal  ballets  at  the 
Grand  Opera  and  the  eternal  vaudeville  at  the  old  Palais  Royal ;  but, 
except  for  them,  his  own  Paris  of  the  Second  Empire  was  as  extinct 
as  that  of  the  first  Napoleon.  At  the  galleries  and  exhibitions,  he  was 
racked  by  the  effort  of  art  to  be  original,  and  when  one  day,  after 
much  reflection,  John  La  Farge  asked  whether  there  might  not  still  be 
room  for  something  simple  in  art,  Adams  shook  his  head.  As  he  saw 
the  world,  it  was  no  longer  simple  and  could  not  express  itself  simply. 
It  should  express  what  it  was ;  and  this  was  something  that  neither 
Adams  nor  La  Farge  understood. 

Under  the  first  blast  of  this  furnace-heat,  the  lights  seemed  fairly  to 
go  out.  He  felt  nothing  in  common  with  the  world  as  it  promised  to 
be.  He  was  ready  to  quit  it,  and  the  easiest  path  led  back  to  the  east ; 
but  he  could  not  venture  alone,  and  the  rarest  of  animals  is  a  companion. 
He  must  return  to  America  to  get  one.  Perhaps,  while  waiting,  he 
might  write  more  history,  and  on  the  chance  as  a  last  resource,  he  gave 
orders  for  copying  everything  he  could  reach  in  archives,  but  this  was 
mere  habit.  He  went  home  as  a  horse  goes  back  to  his  stable,  because 
he  knew  nowhere  else  to  go. 

Home  was  Washington.  As  soon  as  Grant's  administration  ended,  in 
1877,  and  Evarts  became  Secretary  of  State,  Adams  went  back  there, 
partly  to  write  history,  but  chiefly  because  his  seven  years  of  laborious 
banishment,  in  Boston,  convinced  him  that,  as  far  as  he  had  a  function 
in  life,  it  was  as  stable-companion  to  statesmen,  whether  they  liked  it  or 
not.  At  about  the  same  time,  old  George  Bancroft  did  the  same  thing, 
and  presently  John  Hay  came  on  to  be  Assistant  Secretary  of  State  for 
Mr.  Evarts,  and  stayed  there  to  write  the  Life  of  Lincoln.  In  1884 
Adams  joined  him  in  employing  Richardson  to  build  them  adjoining 
houses  on  La  Fayette  Square.  As  far  as  Adams  had  a  home  this  was 
it.  To  the  house  on  La  Fayette  Square  he  must  turn,  for  he  had  no 
other  status, — no  position  in  the  world. 

Never  did  he  make  a  decision  more  reluctantly  than  this  of  going 
back  to  his  manger.  His  father  and  mother  were  dead.  All  his  family 
led  settled  lives  of  their  own.  Except  for  two  or  three  friends  in  Wash 
ington,  who  were  themselves  uncertain  of  stay,  no  one  cared  whether  he 
came  or  went,  and  he  cared  least.  There  was  nothing  to  care  about. 


278  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

Everyone  was  busy ;  nearly  everyone  seemed  contented.  Since  1871 
nothing  had  ruffled  the  surface  of  the  American  world,  and  even  the 
progress  of  Europe  in  her  sideway  track  to  dis-Europeaning  herself  had 
ceased  to  be  violent. 

After  a  dreary  January  in  Paris,  at  last  when  no  excuse  could  be 
persuaded  to  offer  itself  for  further  delay,  he  crossed  the  channel  and 
passed  a  week  with  his  old  friend,  Milnes  Gaskell,  at  Thornes,  in  York 
shire,  while  the  westerly  gales  raved  a  warning  against  going  home. 
Yorkshire  in  January  is  not  an  island  in  the  South  Seas.  It  has  few 
points  of  resemblance  to  Tahiti;  not  many  to  Fiji  or  Samoa;  but,  as  so 
often  before,  it  was  a  rest  between  past  and  future,  and  Adams  was 
grateful  for  it. 

At  last,  on  February  3,  he  drove,  after  a  fashion,  down  the  Irish 
Channel,  on  board  the  "  Teutonic."  He  had  not  crossed  the  Atlantic  for 
a  dozen  years,  and  had  never  seen  an  ocean  steamer  of  the  new  type.  He 
had  seen  nothing  new  of  any  sort,  or  much  changed  in  France  or  Eng 
land.  The  railways  made  quicker  time,  but  were  no  more  comfortable. 
The  scale  was  the  same.  The  Channel  service  was  hardly  improved 
since  1858,  or  so  little  as  to  make  no  impression.  Europe  seemed 
to  have  been  stationary  for  twenty  years.  To  a  man  who  had  been 
stationary  like  Europe,  the  "  Teutonic "  was  a  marvel.  That  he  should 
be  able  to  eat  his  dinner  through  a  week  of  howling  winter  gales  was  a 
miracle.  That  he  should  have  a  deck  stateroom,  with  fresh  air,  and 
read  all  night,  if  he  chose,  by  electric  light,  was  matter  for  more  wonder 
than  life  had  yet  supplied,  in  its  old  forms.  Wonder  may  be  double, — 
even  treble.  Adams's  wonder  ran  off  into  figures.  As  the  "  Niagara " 
was  to  the  " Teutonic,"— as  1860  was  to  1890,— so  the  "Teutonic"  and 
1890  must  be  to  the  next  term  ; — and  then  ?  Apparently  the  question 
concerned  only  America.  Western  Europe  offered  no  such  conundrum. 
There  one  might  double  scale  and  speed  indefinitely  without  passing 
bounds.. 

Fate  was  kind  on  that  voyage.  Rudyard  Kipling,  on  his  wedding 
trip  to  America,  thanks  to  the  mediation  of  Henry  James,  dashed  over 
the  passenger  his  exuberant  fountain  of  gaiety  and  wit, — as  though  play 
ing  a  garden  hose  on  a  thirsty  and  faded  begonia.  Kipling  could  never 
know  what  peace  of  mind  he  gave,  for  he  could  hardly  ever  need  it 


TWENTY  YEARS   AFTER  279 

himself  so  much ;  and  yet,  in  the  full  delight  of  his  endless  fun  and 
variety,  one  felt  the  old  conundrum  repeat  itself.  Somehow,  somewhere, 
Kipling  and  the  American  were  not  one,  but  two,  and  could  not  he 
glued  together.  The  American  felt  that  the  defect,  if  defect  it  were, 
was  in  himself;  he  had  felt  it  when  he  was  with  Swinburne,  and, 
again,  with  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  even  under  the  palms  of  Vaiala ; 
but  he  did  not  carry  self-abasement  to  the  point  of  thinking  himself 
singular.  Whatever  the  defect  might  be,  it  was  American  ;  it  belonged 
to  the  type ;  it  lived  in  the  blood.  Whatever  the  quality  might  be 
that  held  him  apart,  it  was  English ;  it  lived  also  in  the  blood ;  one 
felt  it  little  if  at  all,  with  Celts,  and  one  yearned  reciprocally  among 
Fiji  cannibals.  Clarence  King  used  to  say  that  it  was  due  to  discord 
between  the  wave-lengths  of  the  man-atoms ;  but  the  theory  offered 
difficulties  in  measurement.  Perhaps,  after  all,  it  was  only  that  genius 
soars ;  but  this  theory,  too,  had  its  dark  corners.  All  through  life,  one 
had  seen  the  American  on  his  literary  knees  to  the  European;  and 
all  through  many  lives  back  for  some  two  centuries,  one  had  seen  the 
European  snub  or  patronize  the  American ;  not  always  intentionally  but 
effectually.  It  was  in  the  nature  of  things.  Kipling  neither  snubbed 
nor  patronized ;  he  was  all  gaiety  and  good  nature ;  but  he  would  have 
been  first  to  feel  what  one  meant.  Genius  has  to  pay  itself  that 
unwilling  self-respect. 

Towards  the  middle  of  February,  1892,  Adams  found  himself  again 
in  Washington.  In  Paris  and  London  he  had  seen  nothing  to  make 
a  return  to  life  worth  while;  in  Washington  he  saw  plenty  of  reasons 
for  staying  dead.  Changes  had  taken  place  there ;  improvements  had 
been  made;  with  time — much  time — the  city  might  become  habitable 
according  to  some  fashionable  standard ;  but  all  one's  friends  had  died 
or  disappeared  several  times  over,  leaving  one  almost  as  strange  as  in 
Boston  or  London.  Slowly,  a  certain  society  had  built  itself  up  about 
the  government ;  houses  had  been  opened  and  there  was  much  dining ; 
•much  calling;  much  leaving  of  cards;  but  a  solitary  man  counted  for 
less  than  in  1868.  Society  seemed  hardly  more  at  home  than  he. 
Both  Executive  and  Congress  held  it  aloof.  No  one  in  society  seemed 
to  have  the  ear  of  anybody  in  government.  No  one  in  government 
knew  any  reason  for  consulting  anyone  in  society.  The  world  had 


280  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

ceased  to  be  wholly  political,  but  politics  had  become  less  social.  A 
survivor  of  the  civil  war, — like  George  Bancroft,  or  John  Hay, — tried 
to  keep  footing,  but  without  brilliant  success.  They  were  free  to  say 
or  do  what  they  liked,  but  no  one  took  much  notice  of  anything  said 
or  done. 

A  presidential  election  was  to  take  place  in  November,  and  no  one 
showed  much  interest  in  the  result.  The  two  candidates  were  singular 
persons,  of  whom  it  was  the  common  saying  that  one  of  them  had  no 
friends ;  the  other,  only  enemies.  Calvin  Brice,  who  was  at  that  time 
altogether  the  wittiest  and  cleverest  member  of  the  Senate,  was  in  the 
habit  of  describing  Mr.  Cleveland  in  glowing  terms  and  at  great  length, 
as  one  of  the  loftiest  natures  and  noblest  characters  of  ancient  or  modern 
time ;  "  but,"  he  concluded,  "  in  future  I  prefer  to  look  on  at  his 
proceedings  from  the  safe  summit  of  some  neighboring  hill."  The  same 
remark  applied  to  Mr.  Harrison.  In  this  respect,  they  were  the  greatest 
of  Presidents,  for,  whatever  harm  they  might  do  their  enemies,  was  as 
nothing  when  compared  to  the  mortality  they  inflicted  on  their  friends. 
Men  fled  them  as  though  they  had  the  evil  eye.  To  the  American 
people,  the  two  candidates  and  the  two  parties  were  so  evenly  balanced 
that  the  scales  showed  hardly  a  perceptible  difference.  Mr.  Harrison  was 
an  excellent  President,  a  man  of  ability  and  force ;  perhaps  the  best 
President  the  Republican  party  had  put  forward  since  Lincoln's  death ; 
yet,  on  the  whole,  Adams  felt  a  shade  of  preference  for  President 
Cleveland,  not  so  much  personally  as  because  the  democrats  represented 
to  him  the  last  remnants  of  the  eighteenth  century ;  the  survivors  of 
Hosea  Biglow's  Cornwallis ;  the  sole  remaining  protestants  against  a 
banker's  Olympus  which  had  become,  for  five-and-twenty  years,  more  and 
more  despotic  over  Esop's  frog-empire.  One  might  no  longer  croak 
except  to  vote  for  King  Log,  or, — failing  storks, — for  Grover  Cleveland ; 
and  even  then  could  not  be  sure  where  King  Banker  lurked  behind. 
The  costly  education  in  politics  had  led  to  political  torpor.  Everyone 
did  not  share  it.  Clarence  King  and  John  Hay  were  loyal  republicans 
who  never  for  a  moment  conceived  that  there  could  be  merit  in  other 
ideals.  With  King,  the  feeling  was  chiefly  love  of  archaic  races ; 
sympathy  with  the  negro  and  Indian  and  corresponding  dislike  of  their 
enemies ;  but  with  Hay,  party  loyalty  became  a  phase  of  being,  a  little 


TWENTY  YEARS  AFTER  281 

like  the  loyalty  of  a  highly  cultivated  churchman  to  his  Church.  He 
saw  all  the  failings  of  the  party,  and  still  more  keenly  those  of  the 
partisans ;  hut  he  could  not  live  outside.  To  Adams  a  western  democrat 
or  a  western  republican,  a  city  democrat  or  a  city  republican,  a  W.  C. 
Whitney  or  a  J.  G.  Elaine,  were  actually  the  same  man,  as  far  as  their 
usefulness  to  the  objects  of  King,  Hay  or  Adams  was  concerned.  They 
graded  themselves  as  friends  or  enemies,  not  as  republicans  or  democrats. 
To  Hay,  the  difference  was  that  of  being  respectable  or  not. 

Since  1877,  King,  Hay  and  Adams  had  been  inseparable.  Step  by 
step,  they  had  gone  on  in  the  closest  sympathy,  rather  shunning  than 
inviting  public  position,  until,  in  1892,  none  of  them  held  any  post  at 
all.  With  great  effort,  in  Hayes's  administration,  all  King's  friends, 
including  Abram  Hewitt  and  Carl  Schurz,  had  carried  the  bill  for 
uniting  the  Surveys  and  had  placed  King  at  the  head  of  the  Bureau ; 
but  King  waited  only  to  organise  the  Service,  and  then  resigned,  in 
order  to  seek  his  private  fortune  in  the  west.  Hay,  after  serving  as 
Assistant  Secretary  of  State  under  Secretary  Evarts  during  a  part  of 
Hayes's  administration,  then  also  insisted  on  going  out,  in  order  to  write 
with  Nicolay,  the  Life  of  Lincoln.  Adams  had  held  no  office,  and 
when  his  friends  asked  the  reason,  he  could  not  go  into  long  explana 
tions,  but  preferred  to  answer  simply  that  no  President  had  ever  invited 
him  to  fill  one.  The  reason  was  good,  and  was  also  conveniently  true 
but  left  open  an  awkward  doubt  of  his  morals  or  capacity.  Why  had 
no  President  ever  cared  to  employ  him  ?  The  question  needed  a  volume 
of  intricate  explanation.  There  never  was  a  day  when  he  would  have 
refused  to  perform  any  duty  that  the  government  imposed  on  him, 
but  the  American  government  never  to  his  knowledge  imposed  duties. 
The  point  was  never  raised  with  regard  to  him,  or  to  anyone  else. 
The  government  required  candidates  to  offer ;  the  business  of  the 
Executive  began  and  ended  with  the  consent  or  refusal  to  confer. 
The  social  formula  carried  this  passive  attitude  a  shade  further.  Any 
public  man  who  may  for  years  have  used  some  other  man's  house  as  his 
own,  when  promoted  to  a  position  of  patronage  commonly  feels  himself 
obliged  to  inquire,  directly  or  indirectly,  whether  his  friend  wants  any 
thing  ;  which  is  equivalent  to  a  civil  act  of  divorce,  since  he  feels 
awkward  in  the  old  relation.  The  handsomest  formula,  in  an  impartial 


282  THE  EDUCATION  OP  HENRY  ADAMS 

choice,  was  the  grandly  courteous  southern  phrase  of  Lamar ; — "Of 
course  Mr.  Adams  knows  that  anything  in  my  power  is  at  his  service." 
A  la  disposition  de  Usted  f  The  form  must  have  been  correct  since  it 
pleased  both  parties.  He  was  right ;  Mr.  Adams  did  know  all  about 
it;  a  bow  and  a  conventional  smile  closed  the  subject  forever,  and  every 
one  felt  nattered. 

Such  an  intimate,  promoted  to  power,  was  always  lost.  His  duties 
and  cares  absorbed  him  and  affected  his  balance  of  mind.  Unless  his 
friend  served  some  political  purpose,  friendship  was  an  effort.  Men 
who  neither  wrote  for  newspapers  nor  made  campaign  speeches ;  who 
rarely  subscribed  to  the  campaign  fund,  and  who  entered  the  White 
House  as  seldom  as  possible,  placed  themselves  outside  the  sphere  of 
usefulness,  and  did  so  with  entirely  adequate  knowledge  of  what  they 
were  doing.  They  never  expected  the  President  to  ask  for  their  services, 
and  saw  no  reason  why  he  should  do  so.  As  for  Henry  Adams,  in 
fifty  years  that  he  knew  Washington,  no  one  would  have  been  more 
surprised  than  himself  had  any  President  ever  asked  him  to  perform  so 
much  of  a  service  as  to  cross  the  square.  Only  Texan  congressmen 
imagined  that  the  President  needed  their  services  in  some  remote 
consulate  after  worrying  him  for  months  to  find  one. 

In  Washington  this  law  or  custom  is  universally  understood,  and 
no  one's  character  necessarily  suffered  because  he  held  no  office.  No  one 
took  office  unless  he  wanted  it ;  and  in  turn  the  outsider  was  never  asked 
to  do  work  or  subscribe  money.  Adams  saw  no  office  that  he  wanted, 
and  he  gravely  thought  that,  from  his  point  of  view,  in  the  long  run,  he 
was  likely  to  be  a  more  useful  citizen  without  office.  He  could  at  least 
act  as  audience,  and,  in  those  days,  a  Washington  audience  seldom  filled 
even  a  small  theatre.  He  felt  quite  well  satisfied  to  look  on,  and  from 
time  to  time  he  thought  he  might  risk  a  criticism  of  the  players ;  but 
though  he  found  his  own  position  regular,  he  never  quite  understood  that 
of  John  Hay.  The  republican  leaders  treated  Hay  as  one  of  themselves ; 
they  asked  his  services  and  took  his  money  with  a  freedom  that  staggered 
even  a  hardened  observer ;  but  they  never  needed  him  in  equivalent 
office.  In  Washington  Hay  was  the  only  competent  man  in  the  party 
for  diplomatic  work.  He  corresponded  in  his  powers  of  usefulness  exactly 
with  Lord  Granville  in  London,  who  had  been  for  forty  years  the  saving 


TWENTY  YEARS  AFTER  283 

grace  of  every  liberal  administration  in  turn.  Had  usefulness  to  the  public 
service  been  ever  a  question,  Hay  should  have  had  a  first-class  mission 
under  Hayes ;  should  have  been  placed  in  the  cabinet  by  Garfield,  and 
should  have  been  restored  to  it  by  Harrison.  These  gentlemen  were 
always  using  him ;  always  invited  his  services,  and  always  took  his  money. 

Adams's  opinion  of  politics  and  politicians,  as  he  frankly  admitted, 
lacked  enthusiasm,  although  never,  in  his  severest  temper  did  he  apply 
to  them  the  terms  they  freely  applied  to  each  other ;  and  he  explained 
everything  by  his  old  explanation  of  Grant's  character  as  more  or  less 
a  general  type ;  but  what  roused  in  his  mind  more  rebellion  was  the 
patience  and  good-nature  with  which  Hay  allowed  himself  to  be  used. 
The  trait  was  not  confined  to  politics.  Hay  seemed  to  like  to  be  used, 
and  this  was  one  of  his  many  charms ;  but  in  politics  this  sort  of  good 
nature  demands  supernatural  patience.  Whatever  astonishing  lapses  of 
social  convention  the  politicians  betrayed,  Hay  laughed  equally  heartily, 
and  told  the  stories  with  constant  amusement,  at  his  own  expense.  Like 
most  Americans,  he  liked  to  play  at  making  Presidents,  but,  unlike  most, 
he  laughed  not  only  at  the  Presidents  he  helped  to  make,  but  also  at 
himself  for  laughing. 

One  must  be  rich,  and  come  from  Ohio  or  New  York  to  gratify  an 
expensive  taste  like  this.  Other  men,  on  both  political  flanks,  did  the 
same  thing,  and  did  it  well,  less  for  selfish  objects  than  for  the  amusement 
of  the  game ;  but  Hay  alone  lived  in  Washington  and  in  the  centre  of 
the  Ohio  influences  that  ruled  the  republican  party  during  thirty  years. 
On  the  whole,  these  influences  were  respectable,  and  although  Adams 
could  not,  under  any  circumstances  have  had  any  value,  even  financially, 
for  Ohio  politicians,  Hay  might  have  much,  as  he  showed,  if  they  only 
knew  enough  to  appreciate  him.  The  American  politician  was  occasionally 
an  amusing  object ;  Hay  laughed,  and,  for  want  of  other  resource,  Adams 
laughed  too ;  but  perhaps  it  was  partly  irritation  at  seeing  how  President 
Harrison  dealt  his  cards  that  made  Adams  welcome  President  Cleveland 
back  to  the  White  House. 

At  all  events,  neither  Hay  nor  King  nor  Adams  had  much  to  gain 
by  reelecting  Mr.  Harrison  in  1892,  or  by  defeating  him,  as  far  as  he 
was  concerned ;  and  as  far  as  concerned  Mr.  Cleveland,  they  seemed  to 
have  even  less  personal  concern.  The  whole  country,  to  outward  appear- 


284  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

ance,  stood  in  much  the  same  frame  of  mind.  Everywhere  was  slack-water. 
Hay  himself  was  almost  as  languid  and  indifferent  as  Adams.  Neither 
had  occupation.  Both  had  finished  their  literary  work.  The  Life  of 
Lincoln  had  been  begun,  completed  and  published  hand  in  hand  with 
the  History  of  Jefferson  and  Madison,  so  that  between  them  they  had 
written  nearly  all  the  American  history  that  was  to  write.  The  inter 
mediate  period  needed  intermediate  treatment ;  the  gap  between  James 
Madison  and  Abraham  Lincoln  could  not  be  judicially  filled  by  either  of 
them.  Both  were  heartily  tired  of  the  subject,  and  America  seemed  as 
tired  as  they.  What  was  worse,  the  redeeming  energy  of  Americans 
which  had  generally  served  as  the  resource  of  minds  otherwise  vacant, 
the  creation  of  new  force,  the  application  of  expanding  power,  showed 
signs  of  check.  Even  the  year  before,  in  1891,  far  off  in  the  Pacific,  one 
had  met  everywhere  in  the  east  a  sort  of  stagnation  —  a  creeping  paralysis, 
—  complaints  of  shipping  and  producers, — that  spread  though  out  the  whole 
southern  hemisphere.  Questions  of  exchange  and  silver-production  loomed 
large.  Credit  was  shaken,  and  a  change  of  party-government  might 
shake  it  even  in  Washington.  The  matter  did  not  concern  Adams,  who 
had  no  credit,  and  was  always  richest  when  the  rich  were  poor ;  but  it 
helped  to  dull  the  vibration  of  society. 

However  they  studied  it,  the  balance  of  profit  and  loss,  on  the 
last  twenty  years,  for  the  three  friends,  King,  Hay  and  Adams,  was 
exceedingly  obscure  in  1892.  They  had  lost  twenty  years,  but  what  had 
they  gained?  They  often  discussed  the  question.  Hay  had  a  singular 
faculty  for  remembering  faces,  and  would  break  off  suddenly  the  thread 
of  his  talk,  as  he  looked  out  of  the  window  on  La  Fayette  Square,  to 
notice  an  old  Corps-commander  or  Admiral  of  the  Civil  War,  tottering 
along  to  the  Club  for  his  cards  or  his  cocktail : — "  There  is  old  Dash 
who  broke  the  rebel  lines  at  Blankburg !  think  of  his  having  been  a 
thunderbolt  of  war  I "  Or  what  drew  Adams's  closer  attention  : — "  There 
goes  old  Boutwell  gambolling  like  the  gambolling  kid ! "  There  they 
went !  men  who  had  swayed  the  course  of  empire  as  well  as  the  course 
of  Hay,  King  and  Adams,  less  valued  than  the  ephemeral  Congressman 
behind  them,  who  could  not  have  told  whether  the  General  was  a 
Boutwell  or  Boutwell  a  General.  Theirs  was  the  highest  known  success, 
and  one  asked  what  it  was  worth  to  them.  Apart  from  personal  vanity, 


TWENTY  YEAKS  AFTER  285 

what  would  they  sell  it  for?  Would  any  one  of  them,  from  President 
downwards,  refuse  ten  thousand  a  year  in  place  of  all  the  consideration 
he  received  from  the  world  on  account  of  his  success  ? 

Yet  consideration  had  value,  and  at  that  time  Adams  enjoyed 
lecturing  Augustus  St.  Gaudens,  in  hours  of  depression,  on  its 
economics : — "  Honestly  you  must  admit  that  even  if  you  don't  pay  your 
expenses  you  get  a  certain  amount  of  advantage  from  doing  the  best 
work.  Very  likely  some  of  the  really  successful  Americans  would  be 
willing  you  should  come  to  dinner  sometimes,  if  you  did  not  come  too 
often,  while  they  would  think  twice  about  Hay,  and  would  never  stand 
me."  The  forgotten  statesman  had  no  value  at  all ;  the  General  and 
Admiral  not  much ;  the  historian  but  little ;  on  the  whole  the  artist 
stood  best,  and  of  course,  wealth  rested  outside  the  question,  since  it  was 
acting  as  judge ;  but,  in  the  last  resort,  the  judge  certainly  admitted  that 
consideration  had  some  value  as  an  asset,  though  hardly  as  much  as 
ten — or  five — thousand  a  year. 

Hay  and  Adams  had  the  advantage  of  looking  out  of  their  windows  on 
the  antiquities  of  La  Fayette  Square,  with  the  sense  of  having  all  that 
anyone  had ;  all  that  the  world  had  to  offer ;  all  that  they  wanted  in 
life,  including  their  names  on  scores  of  title-pages  and  in  one  or  two 
Biographical  Dictionaries ;  but  this  had  nothing  to  do  with  consideration, 
and  they  knew  no  more  than  Boutwell  or  St.  Gaudens  whether  to  call  it 
success.  Hay  had  passed  ten  years  in  writing  the  Life  of  Lincoln,  and 
perhaps  President  Lincoln  was  the  better  for  it,  but  what  Hay  got  from 
it  was  not  so  easy  to  see,  except  the  privilege  of  seeing  popular  book 
makers  steal  from  his  book  and  cover  the  theft  by  abusing  the  author. 
Adams  had  given  ten  or  a  dozen  years  to  Jefferson  and  Madison,  with 
expenses  which,  in  any  mercantile  business,  could  hardly  have  been 
reckoned  at  less  than  a  hundred  thousand  dollars,  on  a  salary  of  five 
thousand  a  year ;  and  when  he  asked  what  return  he  got  from  this 
expenditure,  rather  more  extravagant  in  proportion  to  his  means  than 
a  racing-stable,  he  could  see  none  whatever.  Such  works  never  return 
money.  Even  Frank  Parkman  never  printed  a  first  edition  of  his 
relatively  cheap  and  popular  volumes,  numbering  more  than  seven 
hundred  copies,  until  quite  at  the  end  of  his  life.  A  thousand  copies 
of  a  book  that  cost  twenty  dollars  or  more  was  as  much  as  any  author 


286  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

could  expect;  two  thousand  copies  was  a  visionary  estimate  unless  it 
were  canvassed  for  subscription.  As  far  as  Adams  knew,  he  had  but 
three  serious  readers : — Abram  Hewitt,  Wayne  McVeagh  and  Hay 
himself.  He  was  amply  satisfied  with  their  consideration,  and  could 
dispense  with  that  of  the  other  fifty-nine  million,  nine-hundred-and-ninety- 
nine  thousand,  nine-hundred-and-ninety-seven ;  but  neither  he  nor  Hay 
was  better  off  in  any  other  respect,  and  their  chief  title  to  consideration 
was  their  right  to  look  out  of  their  own  windows  on  great  men,  alive 
or  dead,  in  La  Fayette  Square,  a  privilege  which  had  nothing  to  do 
with  their  writings. 

The  world  was  always  good-natured ;  civil ;  glad  to  be  amused ; 
open-armed  to  any  one  who  amused  it ;  patient  with  everyone  who  did 
not  insist  on  putting  himself  in  its  way,  or  costing  it  money ;  but  this 
was  not  consideration,  still  less  power  in  any  of  its  concrete  forms,  and 
applied  as  well  or  better  to  a  comic  actor.  Certainly  a  rare  soprano  or 
tenor  voice  earned  infinitely  more  applause  as  it  gave  infinitely  more 
pleasure,  even  in  America ;  but  one  does  what  one  can  with  one's 
means,  and  casting  up  one's  balance  sheet,  one  expects  only  a  reasonable 
return  on  one's  capital.  Hay  and  Adams  had  risked  nothing  and 
never  played  for  high  stakes.  King  had  followed  the  ambitious  course. 
He  had  played  for  many  millions.  He  had  more  than  once  come  close 
to  a  great  success,  but  the  result  was  still  in  doubt,  and  meanwhile  he 
was  passing  the  best  years  of  his  life  underground.  For  companionship 
he  was  mostly  lost. 

Thus,  in  1892,  neither  Hay,  King  nor  Adams  knew  whether  they 
had  attained  successs,  or  how  to  estimate  it,  or  what  to  call  it;  and  the 
American  people  seemed  to  have  no  clearer  idea  than  they.  Indeed  the 
American  people  had  no  idea  at  all ;  they  were  wandering  in  a  wilder 
ness  much  more  sandy  than  the  Hebrews  had  ever  trodden  about  Sinai ; 
they  had  neither  serpents  nor  golden  calfs  to  worship.  They  had  lost  the 
sense  of  worship ;  for  the  idea  that  they  worshipped  money  seemed  a 
delusion.  Worship  of  money  was  an  old-world  trait ;  a  healthy  appetite 
akin  to  worship  of  the  Gods,  or  to  worship  of  power  in  any  concrete 
shape ;  but  the  American  wasted  money  more  recklessly  than  anyone 
ever  did  before ;  he  spent  more  to  less  purpose  than  any  extravagant 
court-aristocracy  ;  he  had  no  sense  of  relative  values,  and  knew  not  what 


TWENTY  YEAES  AFTER  287 

to  do  with  his  money  when  he  got  it,  except  use  it  to  make  more,  or 
throw  it  away.  Probably,  since  human  society  began,  it  had  seen  no  such 
curious  spectacle  as  the  houses  of  the  San  Francisco  millionaires  on  Nob 
Hill.  Except  for  the  railway  system,  the  enormous  wealth  taken  out 
of  the  ground  since  1840,  had  disappeared.  West  of  the  Alleghenies, 
the  whole  country  might  have  been  swept  clean,  and  could  have  been 
replaced  in  better  form  within  one  or  two  years.  The  American  mind 
had  less  respect  for  money  than  the  European  or  Asiatic  mind,  and  bore 
its  loss  more  easily ;  but  it  had  been  deflected  by  its  pursuit  till  it 
could  turn  in  no  other  direction.  It  shunned,  distrusted,  disliked,  the 
dangerous  attraction  of  ideals,  and  stood  alone  in  history  for  its  ignorance 
of  the  past. 

Personal  contact  brought  this  American  trait  close  to  Adams's  notice. 
His  first  step,  on  returning  to  Washington,  took  him  out  to  the  cemetery 
known  as  Kock  Creek,  to  see  the  bronze  figure  which  St.  Gaudens  had 
made  for  him  in  his  absence.  Naturally  every  detail  interested  him ; 
every  line ;  every  touch  of  the  artist ;  every  change  of  light  and  shade; 
every  point  of  relation;  every  possible  doubt  of  St.  Gaudens'  correctness 
of  taste  or  feeling ;  so  that,  as  the  spring  approached,  he  was  apt  to  stop 
there  often  to  see  what  the  figure  had  to  tell  him  that  was  new ;  but,  in 
all  that  it  had  to  say,  he  never  once  thought  of  questioning  what  it 
meant.  He  supposed  its  meaning  to  be  the  one  common-place  about  it, 
— the  oldest  idea  known  to  human  thought.  He  knew  that  if  he  asked 
an  Asiatic  its  meaning,  not  a  man,  woman  or  child  from  Cairo  to  Kams- 
chatka  would  have  needed  more  than  a  glance  to  reply.  From  the 
Egyptian  Sphinx  to  the  Kamakura  Daibuts ;  from  Prometheus  to  Christ ; 
from  Michael  Angelo  to  Shelley,  art  had  wrought  on  this  eternal  figure 
almost  as  though  it  had  nothing  else  to  say.  The  interest  of  the  figure 
was  not  in  its  meaning,  but  in  the  response  of  the  observer.  As  Adams 
sat  there,  numbers  of  people  came,  for  the  figure  seemed  to  have  become 
a  tourist  fashion,  and  all  wanted  to  know  its  meaning.  Most  took  it 
for  a  portrait-statue,  and  the  remnant  were  vacant-minded  in  the  absence 
of  a  personal  guide.  None  felt  what  would  have  been  a  nursery-instinct 
to  a  Hindu  baby  or  a  Japanese  jinrickshaw-runner.  The  only  exceptions 
were  the  clergy,  who  taught  a  lesson  even  deeper.  One  after  another 
brought  companions  there,  and,  apparently  fascinated  by  their  own 
reflection,  broke  out  passionately  against  the  expression  they  felt  in  the 


288  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

figure  of  despair,  of  atheism,  of  denial.  Like  the  others,  the  priest  saw 
only  what  he  brought.  Like  all  great  artists,  St.  Gaudens  held  up  the 
mirror  and  no  more.  The  American  layman  had  lost  sight  of  ideals ; 
the  American  priest  had  lost  sight  of  faith.  Both  were  more  American 
than  the  old,  half-witted  soldiers  who  denounced  the  wasting,  on  a  mere 
grave,  of  money  which  should  have  been  given  for  drink. 

Landed,  lost  and  forgotten,  in  the  center  of  this  vast  plain  of  self- 
content,  Adams  could  see  but  one  active  interest,  to  which  all  others 
were  subservient,  and  which  absorbed  the  energies  of  some  sixty  million 
people  to  the  exclusion  of  every  other  force,  real  or  imaginary.  The 
power  of  the  railway  system  had  enormously  increased  since  1870. 
Already  the  coal  output  of  160,000,000  tons  closely  approached  the 
180,000,000  of  the  British  empire,  and  one  held  one's  breath  at  the 
nearness  of  what  one  had  never  expected  to  see,  the  crossing  of  courses, 
and  the  lead  of  American  energies.  The  moment  was  deeply  exciting  to 
a  historian,  but  the  railway  system  itself  interested  one  less  than  in  1868 
since  it  offered  less  chance  for  future  profit.  Adams  had  been  born  with 
the  railway-system ;  had  grown  up  with  it ;  had  been  over  pretty  nearly 
every  mile  of  it  with  curious  eyes,  and  knew  as  much  about  it  as  his 
neighbors,  but  not  there  could  he  look  for  a  new  education.  Incomplete 
though  it  was,  the  system  seemed  on  the  whole  to  satisfy  the  wants  of 
society  better  than  any  other  part  of  the  social  machine,  and  society  was 
content  with  its  creation,  for  the  time,  and  with  itself  for  creating  it. 
Nothing  new  was  to  be  done  or  learned  there,  and  the  world  hurried  on 
to  its  telephones,  bicycles  and  electric  trams.  At  past  fifty,  Adams 
solemnly  and  painfully  learned  to  ride  the  bicycle. 

Nothing  else  occurred  to  him  as  a  means  of  new  life.  Nothing  else 
offered  itself,  however  carefully  he  sought.  He  looked  for  no  change. 
He  lingered  in  Washington  till  near  July  without  noticing  a  new  idea. 
Then  he  went  back  to  England  to  pass  his  summer  on  the  Deeside.  In 
October  he  returned  to  Washington  and  there  awaited  the  re-election  of 
Mr.  Cleveland,  which  led  to  no  deeper  thought  than  that  of  taking  up 
some  small  notes  that  happened  to  be  outstanding.  He  had  seen  enough 
of  the  world  to  be  a  coward,  and  above  all  he  had  an  uneasy  distrust 
of  bankers.  Even  dead  men  allow  themselves  a  few  narrow  prejudices. 


CHAPTER    XXII 

1893 

Drifting  in  the  dead-water  of  the  fin-de-siecle, — and  during  this  last 
decade  everyone  talked,  and  seemed  to  feel  fin-de-siecle, — where  not  a 
breath  stirred  the  idle  air  of  education  or  fretted  the  mental  torpor  of 
self-content,  one  lived  alone.  Adams  had  long  ceased  going  into  society. 
For  years  he  had  not  dined  out  of  his  own  house,  and  in  public  his  face 
was  as  unknown  as  that  of  an  extinct  statesman.  He  had  often  noticed 
that  six  months'  oblivion  amounts  to  newspaper-death,  and  that  resurrec 
tion  is  rare.  Nothing  is  easier,  if  a  man  wants  it,  than  rest,  profound 
as  the  grave. 

His  friends  sometimes  took  pity  on  him,  and  came  to  share  a  meal 
or  pass  a  night  on  their  passage  south  or  northwards,  but  existence 
was,  on  the  whole,  exceedingly  solitary,  or  seemed  so  to  him.  Of  the 
society  favorites  who  made  the  life  of  every  dinner-table  and  of  the 
halls  of  Congress,  —  Tom  Reed,  Burke  Cockran,  Edw.  Wolcott,  —  he 
knew  not  one.  Although  Calvin  Brice  was  his  next  neighbor  for  six 
years,  entertaining  lavishly  as  no  one  had  ever  entertained  before  in 
Washington,  Adams  never  entered  his  house.  W.  C.  Whitney  rivalled 
Senator  Brice  in  hospitality,  and  was  besides  an  old  acquaintance  of 
the  reforming  era,  but  Adams  saw  him  as  little  as  he  saw  his  chief, 
President  Cleveland,  or  President  Harrison  or  Secretary  Bayard  or  Elaine 
or  Olney.  One  has  no  choice  but  to  go  everywhere  or  nowhere.  No 
one  may  pick  and  choose  between  houses,  or  accept  hospitality  with 
out  returning  it.  He  loved  solitude  as  little  as  others  did ;  but  he 
was  unfit  for  social  work,  and  he  sank  under  the  surface. 

19  289 


290  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

Luckily  for  such  helpless  animals  as  solitary  men,  the  world  is  not 
only  good-natured  but  even  friendly  and  generous ;  it  loves  to  pardon  if 
pardon  is  not  demanded  as  a  right.  Adams's  social  offences  were  many, 
and  no  one  was  more  sensitive  to  it  than  himself;  but  a  few  houses 
always  remained  which  he  could  enter  without  being  asked,  and  quit 
without  being  noticed.  One  was  John  Hay's ;  another  was  Cabot 
Lodge's ;  a  third  led  to  an  intimacy  which  had  the  singular  effect  of 
educating  him  in  knowledge  of  the  very  class  of  American  politician  who 
had  done  most  to  block  his  intended  path  in  life.  Senator  Cameron  of 
Pennsylvania  had  married  in  1880  a  young  niece  of  Senator  John 
Sherman  of  Ohio,  thus  making  an  alliance  of  dynastic  importance  in 
politics,  and  in  society  a  reign  of  sixteen  years,  during  which  Mrs. 
Cameron  and  Mrs.  Lodge  led  a  career,  without  precedent  and  without 
succession,  as  the  dispensers  of  sunshine  over  Washington.  Both  of  them 
had  been  kind  to  Adams,  and  a  dozen  years  of  this  intimacy  had  made 
him  one  of  their  habitual  household,  as  he  was  of  Hay's.  In  a  small 
society,  such  ties  between  houses  become  political  and  social  force. 
Without  intention  or  consciousness,  they  fix  one's  status  in  the  world. 
Whatever  one's  preferences  in  politics  might  be,  one's  house  was  bound 
to  the  republican  interest  when  sandwiched  between  Senator  Cameron, 
John  Hay  and  Cabot  Lodge,  with  Theodore  Roosevelt  equally  at  home 
in  them  all,  and  Cecil  Spring  Rice  to  unite  them  by  impartial  variety. 
The  relation  was  daily,  and  the  alliance  undisturbed  by  power  or 
patronage,  since  Mr.  Harrison,  in  those  respects,  showed  little  more  taste 
than  Mr.  Cleveland  for  the  society  and  interests  of  this  particular  band 
of  followers,  whose  relations  with  the  White  House  were  sometimes 
comic  but  never  intimate. 

In  February,  1893,  Senator  Cameron  took  his  family  to  South 
Carolina,  where  he  had  bought  an  old  plantation  at  Coffin's  Point  on  St. 
Helena  island,  and  Adams,  as  one  of  the  family,  was  taken,  with  the 
rest,  to  open  the  new  experience.  From  there  he  went  on  to  Havana, 
and  came  back  to  Coffin's  Point  to  linger  till  near  April.  In  May  the 
Senator  took  his  family  to  Chicago  to  see  the  Exposition,  and  Adams 
went  with  them.  Early  in  June,  all  sailed  for  England  together  and  at 
last,  in  the  middle  of  July,  all  found  themselves  in  Switzerland,  at 
Prangins,  Chamounix  and  Zermatt.  On  July  22  they  drove  across  the 
Furka  Pass  and  went  down  by  rail  to  Lucerne. 


CHICAGO  291 

Months  of  close  contact  teach  character,  if  character  has  interest ; 
and  to  Adams  the  Cameron  type  had  keen  interest,  ever  since  it  had 
shipwrecked  his  career  in  the  person  of  President  Grant.  Perhaps  it 
owed  life  to  Scotch  blood ;  perhaps  to  the  blood  of  Adam  and  Eve, 
the  primitive  strain  of  man ;  perhaps  only  to  the  blood  of  the  cottager 
working  against  the  blood  of  the  townsman;  but  whatever  it  was,  one 
liked  it  for  its  simplicity.  The  Pennsylvania  mind,  as  minds  go,  was 
not  complex ;  it  reasoned  little  and  never  talked ;  but  in  practical 
matters  it  was  the  steadiest  of  all  American  types;  perhaps  the  most 
efficient ;  certainly  the  safest. 

Adams  had  printed  as  much  as  this  in  his  books,  but  had  never 
been  able  to  find  a  type  to  describe,  the  two  great  historical  Penn- 
sylvanians  having  been,  as  everyone  had  so  often  heard,  Benjamin 
Franklin  of  Boston  and  Albert  Gallatin  of  Geneva.  Of  Albert  Gallatin, 
indeed,  he  had  made  a  voluminous  study  and  an  elaborate  picture, 
only  to  show  that  he  was,  if  American  at  all,  a  New  Yorker,  with 
a  Calvinistic  strain, — rather  Connecticut  than  Pennsylvanian.  The  true 
Pennsylvanian  was  a  narrower  type ;  as  narrow  as  the  kirk ;  as  shy  of 
other  people's  narrowness  as  a  Yankee;  as  self-limited  as  a  Puritan 
farmer.  To  him,  none  but  Pennsylvanians  were  white.  Chinaman, 
negro,  dago,  Italian,  Englishman,  Yankee, — all  was  one  in  the  depths 
of  Pennsylvanian  consciousness.  The  mental  machine  could  run  only 
on  what  it  took  for  American  lines.  This  was  familiar,  ever  since 
one's  study  of  President  Grant  in  1869;  but  in  1893,  as  then,  the 
type  was  admirably  strong  and  useful  if  one  wanted  only  to  run  on 
the  same  lines.  Practically  the  Pennsylvanian  forgot  his  prejudices 
when  he  allied  his  interests.  He  then  became  supple  in  action  and  large 
in  motive,  whatever  he  thought  of  his  colleagues.  When  he  happened 
to  be  right, — which  was,  of  course,  whenever  one  agreed  with  him, — 
he  was  the  strongest  American  in  America.  As  an  ally  he  was  worth 
all  the  rest,  because  he  understood  his  own  class,  who  were  always  a 
majority ;  and  knew  how  to  deal  with  them  as  no  New  Englander  could. 
If  one  wanted  work  done  in  Congress,  one  did  wisely  to  avoid  asking  a 
New  Englander  to  do  it.  A  Pennsylvanian  not  only  could  do  it,  but 
did  it  willingly,  practically  and  intelligently. 

Never   in  the   range  of  human  possibilities  had  a   Cameron  believed 


292  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

in  an  Adams, — or  an  Adams  in  a  Cameron, — but  they  had,  curiously 
enough,  almost  always  worked  together.  The  Camerons  had  what  the 
Adamses  thought  the  political  vice  of  reaching  their  objects  without 
much  regard  to  their  methods.  The  loftiest  virtue  of  the  Pennsylvania 
machine  had  never  been  its  scrupulous  purity  or  sparkling  professions. 
The  machine  worked  by  coarse  means  on  coarse  interests ;  but  its 
practical  success  had  been  the  most  curious  subject  of  study  in  American 
history.  When  one  summed  up  the  results  of  Pennsylvanian  influence, 
one  inclined  to  think  that  Pennsylvania  set  up  the  government  in  1789; 
saved  it  in  1861 ;  created  the  American  system ;  developed  its  iron  and 
coal-power ;  and  invented  its  great  railways.  Following  up  the  same 
line,  in  his  studies  of  American  character,  Adams  reached  the  result, — 
to  him  altogether  paradoxical  —  that  Cameron's  qualities  and  defects 
united  in  equal  share  to  make  him  the  most  useful  member  of  the 
Senate. 

In  the  interest  of  studying,  at  last,  a  perfect  and  favorable 
specimen  of  this  American  type  which  had  so  persistently  suppressed 
his  own,  Adams  was  slow  to  notice  that  Cameron  strongly  influenced 
him,  but  he  could  not  see  a  trace  of  any  influence  which  he  exercised 
on  Cameron.  Not  an  opinion  or  a  view  of  his  on  any  subject  was 
ever  reflected  back  on  him  from  Cameron's  mind ;  not  even  an  expression 
or  a  fact.  Yet  the  difference  in  age  was  trifling,  and  in  education 
slight.  On  the  other  hand,  Cameron  made  deep  impression  on  Adams, 
and  in  nothing  so  much  as  on  the  great  subject  of  discussion  that 
year, — the  question  of  silver. 

Adams  had  taken  no  interest  in  the  matter,  and  knew  nothing 
about  it,  except  as  a  very  tedious  hobby  of  his  friend  Dana  Horton ; 
but  inevitably,  from  the  moment  he  was  forced  to  choose  sides,  he  was 
sure  to  choose  silver.  Every  political  idea  and  personal  prejudice  he 
ever  dallied  with  held  him  to  the  silver  standard,  and  made  a  barrier 
between  him  and  gold.  He  knew  well  enough  all  that  was  to  be  said 
for  the  gold  standard  as  economy,  but  he  had  never  in  his  life  taken 
politics  for  a  pursuit  of  economy.  One  might  have  a  political  or  an 
economical  policy;  one  could  not  have  both  at  the  same  time.  This 
was  heresy  in  the  English  school,  but  it  had  always  been  law  in  the 
American.  Equally  he  knew  all  that  was  to  be  said  on  the  moral  side 


CHICAGO  293 

of  the  question,  and  he  admitted  that  his  interests  were,  as  Boston 
maintained,  wholly  on  the  side  of  gold ;  but,  had  they  been  ten  times  as 
great  as  they  were,  he  could  not  have  helped  his  bankers  or  croupiers 
to  load  the  dice  and  pack  the  cards  to  make  sure  his  winning  the 
stakes.  At  least  he  was  bound  to  profess  disapproval, — or  thought  he 
was.  From  early  childhood  his  moral  principles  had  struggled  blindly 
with  his  interests,  but  he  was  certain  of  one  law  that  ruled  all  others, — 
masses  of  men  invariably  follow  interests  in  deciding  morals.  Morality 
is  a  private  and  costly  luxury.  The  morality  of  the  silver  or  gold 
standards  was  to  be  decided  by  popular  vote,  and  the  popular  vote 
would  be  decided  by  interests ;  but  on  which  side  lay  the  larger 
interest?  To  him  the  interest  was  political;  he  thought  it  probably 
his  last  chance  of  standing  up  for  his  eighteenth-century  principles, 
strict  construction,  limited  powers,  George  Washington,  John  Adams, 
and  the  rest.  He  had,  in  a  half-hearted  way,  struggled  all  his  life 
against  State  Street,  Banks,  Capitalism  altogether,  as  he  knew  it  in  old 
England  or  new  England,  and  he  was  fated  to  make  his  last  resistance 
behind  the  silver  standard. 

For  him  this  result  was  clear,  and  if  he  erred,  he  erred  in  company 
with  nine  men  out  of  ten  in  Washington,  for  there  was  little  difference 
on  the  merits.  Adams  was  sure  to  learn  backwards,  but  the  case  seemed 
entirely  different  with  Cameron,  a  typical  Pennsylvanian,  a  practical 
politician,  whom  all  the  reformers,  including  all  the  Adamses,  had  abused 
for  a  life-time  for  subservience  to  monied-interests  and  political  jobbery. 
He  was  sure  to  go  with  the  Banks  and  Corporations  which  had  made 
and  sustained  him.  On  the  contrary,  he  stood  out  obstinately  as  the 
leading  champion  of  silver  in  the  east.  The  reformers,  represented  by 
the  Evening  Post  and  Godkin,  whose  personal  interests  lay  with  the  gold 
standard,  at  once  assumed  that  Senator  Cameron  had  a  personal  interest 
in  silver,  and  denounced  his  corruption  as  hotly  as  though  he  had  been 
convicted  of  taking  a  bribe. 

More  than  silver  and  gold,  the  moral  standard  interested  Adams. 
His  own  interests  were  with  gold,  but  he  supported  silver ;  the  Evening 
Post's  and  Godkin's  interests  were  with  gold,  and  they  frankly  said  so, 
yet  they  avowedly  pursued  their  interests  even  into  politics ;  Cameron's 
interests  had  always  been  with  the  Corporations,  yet  he  supported  silver. 


294  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

Thus  morality  required  that  Adams  should  be  condemned  for  going 
against  his  interests ;  that  Godkin  was  virtuous  in  following  his  interests ; 
and  that  Cameron  was  a  scoundrel  whatever  he  did. 

Granting  that  one  of  the  three  was  a  moral  idiot,  which  was  it : 
— Adams,  or  Godkin  or  Cameron  ?  Until  a  Council  or  a  Pope  or  a 
Congress  or  the  newspapers  or  a  popular  election  has  decided  a  question 
of  doubtful  morality,  individuals  are  apt  to  err,  especially  when  putting 
money  into  their  own  pockets ;  but  in  democracies,  the  majority  alone 
gives  law.  To  anyone  who  knew  the  relative  popularity  of  Cameron 
and  Godkin,  the  idea  of  a  popular  vote  between  them  seemed  excessively 
humorous ;  yet  the  popular  vote  did  in  the  end  decide  against  Cameron, 
for  Godkin. 

The  Boston  moralist  and  reformer  went  on,  as  always,  like  Doctor 
Johnson,  impatiently  stamping  his  foot  and  following  his  interests,  or 
his  antipathies ;  but  the  true  American,  slow  to  grasp  new  and  compli 
cated  ideas,  groped  in  the  dark  to  discover  where  his  greater  interest 
lay.  As  usual,  the  Banks  taught  him.  In  the  course  of  fifty  years 
the  Banks  taught  one  many  wise  lessons  for  which  an  insect  had  to  be 
grateful  whether  it  liked  them  or  not ;  but  of  all  the  lessons  Adams 
learned  from  them,  none  compared  in  dramatic  effect  with  that  of  July 
22,  1893,  when,  after  talking  silver  all  the  morning  with  Senator 
Cameron  on  the  top  of  their  travelling-carriage  crossing  the  Furka 
Pass,  they  reached  Lucerne  in  the  afternoon,  where  Adams  found 
letters  from  his  brothers  requesting  his  immediate  return  to  Boston 
because  the  community  was  bankrupt  and  he  was  probably  a  beggar. 

If  he  wanted  education,  he  knew  no  quicker  mode  of  learning  a 
lesson  than  that  of  being  struck  on  the  head  by  it ;  and  yet  he  was  him 
self  surprised  at  his  own  slowness  to  understand  what  had  struck  him. 
For  several  years  a  sufferer  from  insomnia,  his  first  thought  was  of 
beggary  of  nerves,  and  he  made  ready  to  face  a  sleepless  night,  but 
although  his  mind  tried  to  wrestle  with  the  problem  how  any  man  could 
be  ruined  who  had,  months  before,  paid  off  every  dollar  of  debt  he 
knew  himself  to  owe,  he  gave  up  that  insoluble  riddle  in  order  to  fall 
back  on  the  larger  principle  that  beggary  could  be  no  more  for  him 
than  it  was  for  others  who  were  more  valuable  members  of  society,  and, 
with  that,  he  went  to  sleep  like  a  good  citizen,  and  the  next  day 
started  for  Quincy  where  he  arrived  August  7. 


CHICAGO  295 

As  a  starting-point  for  a  new  education  at  fifty-five  years  old,  the 
shock  of  finding  oneself  suspended,  for  several  months,  over  the  edge  of 
bankruptcy,  without  knowing  how  one  got  there,  or  how  to  get  away,  is 
to  be  strongly  recommended.  By  slow  degrees  the  situation  dawned  on 
him  that  the  Banks  had  lent  him,  among  others,  some  money,  thousands 
or  millions  were, — as  bankruptcy, — the  same;  for  which  he,  among  others, 
was  responsible  and  of  which  he  knew  no  more  than  they.  The  humor 
of  this  situation  seemed  to  him  so  much  more  pointed  than  the  terror, 
as  to  make  him  laugh  at  himself  with  a  sincerity  he  had  been  long 
strange  to.  As  far  as  he  could  comprehend,  he  had  nothing  to  lose  that 
he  cared  about,  but  the  Banks  stood  to  lose  their  existence.  Money 
mattered  as  little  to  him  as  to  anybody,  but  money  was  their  life.  For 
the  first  time  he  had  the  Banks  in  his  power ;  he  could  afford  to  laugh ; 
and  the  whole  community  was  in  the  same  position,  though  few  laughed. 
All  sat  down  on  the  Banks  and  asked  what  the  Banks  were  going  to  do 
about  it.  To  Adams  the  situation  seemed  farcical,  but  the  more  he  saw 
of  it,  the  less  he  understood  it.  He  was  quite  sure  that  nobody  under 
stood  it  much  better.  Blindly  some  very  powerful  energy  was  at  work, 
doing  something  that  nobody  wanted  done.  When  Adams  went  to  his 
Bank  to  draw  a  hundred  dollars  of  his  own  money  on  deposit,  the  cashier 
refused  to  let  him  have  more  than  fifty,  and  Adams  accepted  the  fifty 
without  complaint  because  he  was  himself  refusing  to  let  the  Banks  have 
some  hundreds  or  thousands  that  belonged  to  them.  Each  wanted  to  help 
the  other,  yet  both  refused  to  pay  their  debts,  and  he  could  find  no 
answer  to  the  question  which  was  responsible  for  getting  the  other  into 
the  situation,  since  lenders  and  borrowers  were  the  same  interest  and 
socially  the  same  person.  Evidently  the  force  was  one ;  its  operation  was 
mechanical ;  its  effect  must  be  proportional  to  its  power ;  but  no  one 
knew  what  it  meant,  and  most  people  dismissed  it  as  an  emotion, — a 
panic, — that  meant  nothing. 

Men  died  like  flies  under  the  strain  and  Boston  grew  suddenly  old, 
haggard  and  thin.  Adams  alone  waxed  fat  and  was  happy,  for  at  last 
he  had  got  hold  of  his  world  and  could  finish  his  education,  interrupted 
for  twenty  years.  He  cared  not  whether  it  were  worth  finishing,  if  only 
it  amused ;  but  he  seemed,  for  the  first  time  since  1870,  to  feel  that 
something  new  and  curious  was  about  to  happen  to  the  world.  Great 


296  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENKY  ADAMS 

changes  had  taken  place  since  1870  in  the  forces  at  work ;  the  old 
machine  ran  far  behind  its  duty ;  somewhere, — somehow, — it  was  bound 
to  break  down,  and  if  it  happened  to  break  precisely  over  one's  head,  it 
gave  the  better  chance  for  study. 

For  the  first  time  in  several  years  he  saw  much  of  his  brother  Brooks 
in  Quincy,  and  was  surprised  to  find  him  absorbed  in  the  same  perplexities. 
Brooks  was  then  a  man  of  forty-five  years  old ;  a  strong  writer  and  a 
vigorous  thinker  who  irritated  too  many  Boston  conventions  ever  to  suit 
the  atmosphere ;  but  the  two  brothers  could  talk  to  each  other  without 
atmosphere  and  were  used  to  audiences  of  one.  Brooks  had  discovered 
or  developed  a  law  of  history  that  civilisation  followed  the  exchanges, 
and  having  worked  it  out  for  the  Mediterranean  was  working  it  out  for 
the  Atlantic.  Everything  American,  as  well  as  most  things  European 
and  Asiatic,  became  unstable  by  this  law,  seeking  new  equilibrium  and 
compelled  to  find  it.  Loving  paradox,  Brooks,  with  the  advantages  of 
ten  years'  study,  had  swept  away  much  rubbish  in  the  effort  to  build  up 
a  new  line  of  thought  for  himself,  but  he  found  that  no  paradox  compared 
with  that  of  daily  events.  The  facts  were  constantly  outrunning  his 
thoughts.  The  instability  was  greater  than  he  calculated ;  the  speed  of 
acceleration  passed  bounds.  Among  other  general  rules  he  laid  down 
the  paradox  that,  in  the  social  disequilibrium  between  capital  and  labor, 
the  logical  outcome  was  not  collectivism  but  anarchism ;  and  Henry  made 
note  of  it  for  study, 

By  the  time  he  got  back  to  Washington  on  September  19,  the  storm 
having  partly  blown  over,  life  had  taken  on  a  new  face,  and  one  so 
interesting  that  he  set  off  to  Chicago  to  study  the  Exposition  again,  and 
stayed  there  a  fortnight  absorbed  in  it.  He  found  matter  of  study  to 
fill  a  hundred  years,  and  his  education  spread  over  chaos.  Indeed  it 
seemed  to  him  as  though,  this  year,  education  went  mad.  The  silver 
question,  thorny  as  it  was,  fell  into  relations  as  simple  as  words  of  one 
syllable,  compared  with  the  problems  of  credit  and  exchange  that  came 
to  complicate  it ;  and  when  one  sought  rest  at  Chicago,  educational  game 
started  like  rabbits  from  every  building,  and  ran  out  of  sight  among 
thousands  of  its  kind  before  one  could  mark  its  burrow.  The  Exposition 
itself  defied  philosophy.  One  might  find  fault  till  the  last  gate  closed, 
one  could  still  explain  nothing  that  needed  explanation.  As  a  scenic 


CHICAGO  297 

display,  Paris  had  never  approached  it,  but  the  inconceivable  scenic  display 
consisted  in  its  being  there  at  all,  —  more  surprising,  as  it  was,  than 
anything  else  on  the  continent,  Niagara  Falls,  the  Yellowstone  Geysers 
and  the  whole  railway  system  thrown  in,  since  these  were  all  natural 
products  in  their  place ;  while,  since  Noah's  Ark,  no  such  Babel  of  loose 
and  ill-joined,  such  vague  and  ill-defined  and  unrelated  thoughts  and 
half-thoughts  and  experimental  outcries  as  the  Exposition,  had  ever  ruffled 
the  surface  of  the  lakes. 

The  first  astonishment  became  greater  every  day.  That  the  Expo 
sition  should  be  a  natural  growth  and  product  of  the  Northwest  offered 
a  step  in  evolution  to  startle  Darwin ;  but  that  it  should  be  anything 
else  seemed  an  idea  more  startling  still ;  and  even  granting  it  were  not, 
— admitting  it  to  be  a  sort  of  industrial,  speculative  growth  and  product 
of  the  Beaux  Arts  artistically  induced  to  pass  the  summer  on  the  shore 
of  Lake  Michigan,  could  it  be  made  to  seem  at  home  there?  Was  the 
American  made  to  seem  at  home  in  it?  Honestly,  he  had  the  air  of 
enjoying  it  as  though  it  were  all  his  own  ;  he  felt  it  was  good ;  he  was 
proud  of  it ;  for  the  most  part,  he  acted  as  though  he  had  passed  his 
life  in  landscape  gardening  and  architectural  decoration.  If  he  had 
not  done  it  himself,  he  had  known  how  to  get  it  done  to  suit  him, 
as  he  knew  how  to  get  his  wives  and  daughters  dressed  at  Worth's  or 
Paquin's.  Perhaps  he  could  not  do  it  again  ;  the  next  time  he  would 
want  to  do  it  himself  and  would  show  his  own  faults ;  but  for  the 
moment  he  seemed  to  have  leaped  directly  from  Corinth  and  Syracuse 
and  Venice,  over  the  heads  of  London  and  New  York,  to  impose 
classical  standards  on  plastic  Chicago.  Critics  had  no  trouble  in  criti 
cising  the  classicism,  but  all  trading  cities  had  always  shown  traders' 
taste,  and,  to  the  stern  purist  of  religious  faith,  no  art  was  thinner 
than  Venetian  Gothic.  All  trader's  taste  smelt  of  bric-a-brac;  Chicago 
tried  at  least  to  give  her  taste  a  look  of  unity. 

One  sat  down  to  ponder  on  the  steps  beneath  Richard  Hunt's 
dome  almost  as  deeply  as  on  the  steps  of  Ara  Coeli,  and  much  to  the 
same  purpose.  Here  was  a  breach  of  continuity, — a  rupture  in  historical 
sequence  !  Was  it  real,  or  only  apparent  ?  One's  personal  universe  hung 
on  the  answer,  for,  if  the  rupture  was  real  and  the  new  American  world 
could  take  this  sharp  and  conscious  twist  towards  ideals,  one's  personal 


298  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

friends  would  come  in,  at  last,  as  winners  in  the  great  American  chariot- 
race  for  fame.  If  the  people  of  the  Northwest  actually  knew  what  was 
good  when  they  saw  it,  they  would  some  day  talk  about  Hunt  and 
Richardson,  La  Farge  and  St.  Gaudens,  Burnham  and  McKim,  and 
Stanford  White  when  their  politicians  and  millionaires  were  otherwise 
forgotten.  The  artists  and  architects  who  had  done  the  work  offered 
little  encouragement  to  hope  it ;  they  talked  freely  enough,  but  not  in 
terms  that  one  cared  to  quote;  and  to  them  the  Northwest  refused  to 
look  artistic.  They  talked  as  though  they  worked  only  for  themselves ; 
as  though  art,  to  the  western  people,  was  a  stage-decoration ;  a  diamond 
shirt-stud ;  a  paper  collar ;  but  possibly  the  architects  of  Paestum  and 
Girgenti  had  talked  in  the  same  way,  and  the  Greek  had  said  the  same 
thing  of  Semitic  Carthage  two  thousand  years  ago. 

Jostled  by  these  hopes  and  doubts,  one  turned  to  the  exhibits  for 
help,  and  found  it.  The  industrial  schools  tried  to  teach  so  much  and 
so  quickly  that  the  instruction  ran  to  waste.  Some  millions  of  other 
people  felt  the  same  helplessness,  but  few  of  them  were  seeking  educa 
tion,  and  to  them  helplessness  seemed  natural  and  normal,  for  they  had 
grown  up  in  the  habit  of  thinking  a  steam-engine  or  a  dynamo  as 
natural  as  the  sun,  and  expected  to  understand  one  as  little  as  the  other. 
For  the  historian  alone  the  Exposition  made  a  serious  effort.  Historical 
exhibits  were  common,  but  they  never  went  far  enough ;  none  were 
thoroughly  worked  out.  One  of  the  best  was  that  of  the  Cunard  Steamers, 
but  still  a  student  hungry  for  results  found  himself  obliged  to  waste  a 
pencil  and  several  sheets  of  paper  trying  to  calculate  exactly  when, 
according  to  the  given  increase  of  power,  tonnage  and  speed,  the  growth 
of  the  ocean  steamer  would  reach  its  limits.  His  figures  brought  him, 
he  thought,  to  the  year  1927 ;  another  generation  to  spare  before  force, 
space  and  time  should  meet.  The  ocean  steamer  ran  the  surest  line  of 
triangulation  into  the  future,  because  it  was  the  nearest  of  man's  products 
to  a  unity ;  railroads  taught  less  because  they  seemed  already  finished 
except  for  mere  increase  in  number ;  explosives  taught  most,  but  needed 
a  tribe  of  chemists,  physicists  and  mathematicians  to  explain ;  the  dynamo 
taught  least  because  it  had  barely  reached  infancy,  and,  if  its  progress  was 
to  be  constant  at  the  rate  of  the  last  ten  years,  it  would  result  in 
infinite  costless  energy  within  a  generation.  One  lingered  long  among 


CHICAGO  299 

the  dynamos,  for  they  were  new,  and  they  gave  to  history  a  new  phase. 
Men  of  science  could  never  understand  the  ignorance  and  naivete  of  the 
historian,  who,  when  he  came  suddenly  on  a  new  power,  asked  naturally 
what  it  was; — did  it  pull  or  did  it  push?  Was  it  a  screw  or  thrust? 
Did  it  flow  or  vibrate  ?  Was  it  a  wire  or  a  mathematical  line  ?  And  a 
score  of  such  questions  to  which  he  expected  answers  and  was  astonished 
to  get  none. 

Education  ran  riot  at  Chicago,  at  least  for  retarded  minds  which 
had  never  faced  in  concrete  form  so  many  matters  of  which  they  were 
ignorant.  Men  who  knew  nothing  whatever,  —  who  had  never  run  a 
steam  engine,  the  simplest  of  forces, — who  had  never  put  their  hands  on 
a  lever, — had  never  touched  an  electric  hattery, — never  talked  through  a 
telephone,  and  had  not  the  shadow  of  a  notion  what  amount  of  force  was 
meant  by  a  watt  or  an  ampere  or  an  erg,  or  any  other  term  of  measure 
ment  introduced  within  a  hundred  years,  had  no  choice  but  to  sit  down 
on  the  steps  and  brood  as  they  had  never  brooded  on  the  benches  of 
Harvard  College,  either  as  student  or  professor,  aghast  at  what  they  had 
said  and  done  in  all  these  years,  and  still  more  ashamed  of  the  childlike 
ignorance  and  babbling  futility  of  the  society  that  let  them  say  and  do 
it.  The  historical  mind  can  think  only  in  historical  processes,  and 
probably  this  was  the  first  time  since  historians  existed,  that  any  of  them 
had  sat  down  helpless  before  a  mechanical  sequence.  Before  a  metaphy 
sical  or  a  theological  or  a  political  sequence,  most  historians  had  felt 
helpless,  but  the  single  clue  to  which  they  had  hitherto  trusted  was  the 
unity  of  natural  force. 

Did  he  himself  quite  know  what  he  meant  ?  Certainly  not !  If  he 
had  known  enough  to  state  his  problem,  his  education  would  have  been 
complete  at  once.  Chicago  asked  in  1893  for  the  first  time  the  question 
whether  the  American  people  knew  where  they  were  driving.  Adams 
answered,  for  one,  that  he  did  not  know,  but  would  try  to  find  out.  On 
reflecting  sufficiently  deeply,  under  the  shadow  of  Kichard  Hunt's  archi 
tecture,  he  decided  that  the  American  people  probably  knew  no  more 
than  he  did ;  but  that  they  might  still  be  driving  or  drifting  unconsciously 
to  some  point  in  thought,  as  their  solar  system  was  said  to  be  drifting 
towards  some  point  in  space ;  and  that,  possibly,  if  relations  enough  could 
be  observed,  this  point  might  be  fixed.  Chicago  was  the  first  expression 
of  American  thought  as  a  unity ;  one  must  start  there. 


300  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENKY  ADAMS 

Washington  was  the  second.  When  he  got  back  there,  he  fell 
headlong  into  the  extra-session  of  Congress  called  to  repeal  the  Silver 
Act.  The  silver  minority  made  an  obstinate  attempt  to  prevent  it,  and 
most  of  the  majority  had  little  heart  in  the  creation  of  a  single  gold 
standard.  The  Banks  alone,  and  the  dealers  in  exchange,  insisted  upon 
it ;  the  political  parties  divided  according  to  capitalistic  geographical 
lines,  Senator  Cameron  offering  almost  the  only  exception ;  but  they 
mixed  with  unusual  good-temper,  and  made  liberal  allowance  for  each 
others'  actions  and  motives.  The  struggle  was  rather  less  irritable  that 
such  struggles  generally  were,  and  it  ended  like  a  comedy.  On  the 
evening  of  the  final  vote,  Senator  Cameron  came  back  from  the  Capitol 
with  Senator  Brice,  Senator  Jones,  Senator  Lodge,  and  Moreton  Frewen, 
all  in  the  gayest  of  humors  as  though  they  were  rid  of  a  heavy 
responsibility.  Adams,  too,  in  a  bystander's  spirit,  felt  light  in  mind. 
He  had  stood  up  for  his  eighteenth-century,  his  constitution  of  1789, 
his  George  Washington,  his  Harvard  College,  his  Quincy  and  his 
Plymouth  Pilgrims,  as  long  as  anyone  would  stand  up  with  him. 
He  had  said  it  was  hopeless  twenty  years  before,  but  he  had  kept  on, 
in  the  same  old  attitude,  by  habit  and  taste,  until  he  found  himself 
altogether  alone.  He  had  hugged  his  antiquated  dislike  of  Bankers 
and  Capitalistic  Society  until  he  had  become  little  better  than  a  crank. 
He  had  known  for  years  that  he  must  accept  the  regime,  but  he  had 
known  a  great  many  other  disagreeable  certainties — like  age,  senility 
and  death, — against  which  one  made  what  little  resistance  one  could. 
The  matter  was  settled  at  last  by  the  people.  For  a  hundred  years, 
between  1793  and  1893,  the  American  people  had  hesitated,  vacillated, 
swayed  forward  and  back,  between  two  forces,  one  simply  industrial, 
the  other  capitalistic,  centralising,  and  mechanical.  In  1893,  the  issue 
came  on  the  single  gold  standard,  and  the  majority  at  last  declared 
itself,  once  for  all,  in  favor  of  the  capitalistic  system  with  all  its 
necessary  machinery.  All  one's  friends,  all  one's  best  citizens,  reformers, 
churches,  colleges,  educated  classes,  had  joined  the  banks  to  force 
submission  to  capitalism ;  a  submission  long  foreseen  by  the  mere  law 
of  mass.  Of  all  forms  of  society  or  government,  this  was  the  one  he 
liked  least,  but  his  likes  or  dislikes  were  as  antiquated  as  the  rebel 
doctrine  of  State-rights.  A  capitalistic  system  had  been  adopted,  and 


CHICAGO  301 

if  it  were  to  be  run  at  all,  it  must  be  run  by  capital  and  by  capitalistic 
methods ;  for  nothing  could  surpass  the  nonsensity  of  trying  to  run  so 
complex  and  so  concentrated  a  machine  by  southern  and  western  farmers 
in  grotesque  alliance  with  city  day-laborers,  as  had  been  tried  in  1800 
and  1828,  and  had  failed  even  under  simple  conditions. 

There,  education  in  domestic  politics  stopped.  The  rest  was  question 
of  gear ;  of  running  machinery ;  of  economy ;  and  involved  no  disputed 
principle.  Once  admitted  that  the  machine  must  be  efficient,  society 
might  dispute  in  what  social  interest  it  should  be  run,  but  in  any 
case  it  must  work  concentration.  Such  great  revolutions  commonly  leave 
some  bitterness  behind,  but  nothing  in  politics  ever  surprised  Henry 
Adams  more  than  the  ease  with  which  he  and  his  silver  friends 
slipped  across  the  chasm,  and  alighted  on  the  single  gold  standard  and 
the  capitalistic  system  with  its  methods ;  the  protective  tariff ;  the 
corporations  and  Trusts ;  the  trades-unions  and  socialistic  paternalism 
which  necessarily  made  their  complement ;  the  whole  mechanical  consoli 
dation  of  force,  which  ruthlessly  stamped  out  the  life  of  the  class  into 
which  Adams  was  born,  but  created  monopolies  capable  of  controlling 
the  new  energies  that  America  adored. 

Society  rested,  after  sweeping  into  the  ash-heap  these  cinders  of  a 
misdirected  education.  After  this  vigorous  impulse,  nothing  remained 
for  a  historian  but  to  ask — how  long  and  how  far! 


CHAPTEE    XXIII 

1894-1898 

The  convulsion  of  1893  left  its  victims  in  dead-water,  and  closed 
much  education.  While  the  country  braced  itself  up  to  an  effort  such 
as  no  one  had  thought  within  its  powers,  the  individual  crawled  as  he  best 
could,  through  the  wreck,  and  found  many  values  of  life  upset.  But  for 
connecting  the  nineteenth  and  twentieth  centuries,  the  four  years,  1893-97, 
had  no  value  in  the  drama  of  education,  and  might  be  left  out.  Much 
that  had  made  life  pleasant  between  1870  and  1890  perished  in  the  ruin, 
and  among  the  earliest  wreckage  had  been  the  fortunes  of  Clarence  King. 
The  lesson  taught  whatever  the  bystander  chose  to  read  in  it ;  but  to 
Adams  it  seemed  singularly  full  of  moral,  if  he  could  but  understand  it. 
In  1871  he  had  thought  King's  education  ideal,  and  his  personal  fitness 
unrivalled.  No  other  young  American  approached  him  for  the  combi 
nation  of  chances: — physical  energy,  social  standing,  mental  scope  and 
training,  wit,  geniality  and  science,  that  seemed  superlatively  American 
and  irresistibly  strong.  His  nearest  rival  was  Alex.  Agassiz,  and,  as  far 
as  their  friends  knew,  no  one  else  could  be  classed  with  them  in  the 
running.  The  result  of  twenty  years'  effort  proved  that  the  theory  of 
scientific  education  failed  where  most  theory  fails,  —  for  want  of  money. 
Even  Henry  Adams,  who  kept  himself,  as  he  thought,  quite  outside  of 
every  possible  financial  risk,  had  been  caught  in  the  cogs,  and  held  for 
months  over  the  gulf  of  bankruptcy,  saved  only  by  the  chance  that  the 
whole  class  of  millionaires  were  more  or  less  bankrupt  too,  and  the  banks 
were  forced  to  let  the  mice  escape  with  the  rats ;  but,  in  sum,  education 
without  capital  could  always  be  taken  by  the  throat  and  forced  to  disgorge 
its  gains,  nor  was  it  helped  by  the  knowledge  that  no  one  intended  it,  but 
302 


SILENCE  303 

that  all  alike  suffered.  Whether  voluntary  or  mechanical  the  result  for 
education  was  the  same.  The  failure  of  the  scientific  scheme,  without 
money  to  back  it,  was  flagrant. 

The  scientific  scheme  in  theory  was  alone  sound,  for  science  should 
be  equivalent  to  money ;  in  practice  science  was  helpless  without  money. 
The  weak  holder  was,  in  his  own  language,  sure  to  be  frozen  out. 
Education  must  fit  the  complex  conditions  of  a  new  society,  always 
accelerating  its  movement,  and  its  fitness  could  be  known  only  from 
success.  One  looked  about  for  examples  of  success  among  the  educated 
of  one's  time, — the  men  born  in  the  thirties,  and  trained  to  professions. 
Within  one's  immediate  acquaintance,  three  were  typical : — John  Hay, 
Whitelaw  Reid  and  William  C.  Whitney,  all  of  whom  owed  their  free 
hand  to  marriage,  education  serving  only  for  ornament,  but  among  whom, 
in  1893,  William  C.  Whitney  was  far  and  away  the  most  popular  type. 

Newspapers  might  prate  about  wealth  till  commonplace  print  was 
exhausted,  but  as  matter  of  habit,  few  Americans  envied  1he  very  rich 
for  anything  the  most  of  them  got  out  of  money.  New  York  might 
occasionally  fear  them,  but  more  often  laughed  or  sneered  at  them,  and 
never  showed  them  respect.  Scarcely  one  of  the  very  rich  men  held  any 
position  in  society  by  virtue  of  his  wealth,  or  could  have  been  elected  to 
an  office,  or  even  into  a  good  Club.  Setting  aside  the  few,  like  Pierpont 
Morgan,  whose  social  position  had  little  to  do  with  greater  or  less  wealth, 
riches  were  in  New  York  no  object  of  envy  on  account  of  the  joys  they 
brought  in  their  train,  and  Whitney  was  not  even  one  of  the  very  rich ; 
yet  in  his  case  the  envy  was  palpable.  There  was  reason  for  it.  Already 
in  1893  Whitney  had  finished  with  politics  after  having  gratified  every 
ambition,  and  swung  the  country  almost  at  his  will ;  he  had  thrown 
away  the  usual  objects  of  political  ambition  like  the  ashes  of  smoked 
cigarettes ;  had  turned  to  other  amusements,  satiated  every  taste,  gorged 
every  appetite,  won  every  object  that  New  York  afforded,  and,  not  yet 
satisfied,  had  carried  his  field  of  activity  abroad,  until  New  York  no 
longer  knew  what  most  to  envy,  his  horses  or  his  houses.  He  had 
succeeded  precisely  where  Clarence  King  had  failed. 

Barely  forty  years  had  passed  since  all  these  men  started  in  a 
bunch  to  race  for  power,  and  the  results  were  fixed  beyond  reversal ; 
but  one  knew  no  better  in  1894  than  in  1854  what  an  American 


304  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

education  ought  to  be  in  order  to  count  as  success.  Even  granting 
that  it  counted  as  money,  its  value  could  not  be  called  general.  America 
contained  scores  of  men  worth  five  millions  or  upwards,  whose  lives 
were  no  more  worth  living  than  those  of  their  cooks,  and  to  whom  the 
task  of  making  money  equivalent  to  education  offered  more  difficulties 
than  to  Adams  the  task  of  making  education  equivalent  to  money. 
Social  position  seemed  to  have  value  still,  while  education  counted  for 
nothing.  A  mathematician,  linguist,  chemist,  electrician,  engineer,  if 
fortunate,  might  average  a  value  of  ten  dollars  a  day  in  the  open 
market.  An  administrator,  organiser,  manager,  with  mediaeval  qualities 
of  energy  and  will  but  no  education  beyond  his  special  branch,  would 
probably  be  worth  at  least  ten  times  as  much. 

Society  had  failed  to  discover  what  sort  of  education  suited  it  best. 
Wealth  valued  social  position  and  classical  education  as  highly  as  either 
of  these  valued  wealth,  and  the  women  still  tended  to  keep  the  scales 
even.  For  anything  Adams  could  see  he  was  himself  as  contented  as 
though  he  had  been  educated  ;  while  Clarence  King,  whose  education  was 
exactly  suited  to  theory,  had  failed ;  and  Whitney,  who  was  no  better 
educated  than  Adams,  had  achieved  phenomenal  success. 

Had  Adams  in  1894  been  starting  in  life  as  he  did  in  1854,  he 
must  have  repeated  that  all  he  asked  of  education  was  the  facile  use 
of  the  four  old  tools  : — Mathematics,  French,  German  and  Spanish.  With 
these  he  could  still  make  his  way  to  any  object  within  his  vision, 
and  would  have  a  decisive  advantage  over  nine  rivals  in  ten.  States 
man  or  lawyer,  chemist  or  electrician,  priest  or  professor,  native  or 
foreign,  he  would  fear  none. 

King's  breakdown,  physical  as  well  as  financial,  brought  the  indirect 
gain  to  Adams  that,  on  recovering  strength,  King  induced  him  to  go 
to  Cuba,  where,  in  January,  1894,  they  drifted  into  the  little  town  of 
Santiago.  The  picturesque  Cuban  society  which  King  knew  well,  was  more 
amusing  than  any  other  that  one  had  yet  discovered  in  the  whole  broad 
world,  but  made  no  profession  of  teaching  anything  unless  it  were  Cuban 
Spanish  or  the  danza;  and  neither  on  his  own  nor  on  King's  account 
did  the  visitor  ask  any  loftier  study  than  that  of  the  buzzards  floating  on 
the  trade-wind  down  the  valley  to  Dos  Bocas,  or  the  colors  of  sea  and 
shore  at  sunrise  from  the  height  of  the  Gran  Piedra ;  but,  as  though  they 


SILENCE  305 

were  still  twenty  years  old  and  revolution  were  as  young  as  they,  the 
decaying  fabric,  which  had  never'  been  solid,  fell  on  their  heads  and  drew 
them  with  it  into  an  ocean  of  mischief.  In  the  half-century  between  1850 
and  1900,  empires  were  always  falling  on  one's  head,  and,  of  all  lessons, 
these  constant  political  convulsions  taught  least.  Since  the  time  of 
Ramses,  revolutions  have  raised  more  doubts  than  they  solved,  but  they 
have  sometimes  the  merit  of  changing  one's  point  of  view,  and  the  Cuban 
rebellion  served  to  sever  the  last  tie  that  attached  Adams  to  a  democratic 
administration.  He  thought  that  President  Cleveland  could  have  settled 
the  Cuban  question,  without  war,  had  he  chosen  to  do  his  duty,  and  this 
feeling,  generally  held  by  the  democratic  party,  joined  with  the  stress  of 
economical  needs  and  the  gold-standard  to  break  into  bits  the  old  organi 
sation  and  to  leave  no  choice  between  parties.  The  new  American,  whether 
consciously  or  not,  had  turned  his  back  on  the  nineteenth  century  before 
he  was  done  with  it;  the  gold-standard,  the  protective  system,  and  the 
laws  of  mass  could  have  no  other  outcome,  and,  as  so  often  before,  the 
movement,  once  accelerated  by  attempting  to  impede  it,  had  the  additional, 
brutal  consequence  of  crushing  equally  the  good  and  the  bad*  that  stood 
in  its  way. 

The  lesson  was  old, — so  old  that  it  became  tedious.  One  had 
studied  nothing  else  since  childhood,  and  wearied  of  it.  For  yet  another 
year  Adams  lingered  on  these  outskirts  of  the  vortex,  among  the 
picturesque,  primitive  types  of  a  world  which  had  never  been  fairly 
involved  in  the  general  motion,  and  were  the  more  amusing  for  their 
torpor.  After  passing  the  winter  with  King  in  the  West  Indies,  he 
passed  the  summer  with  Hay  in  the  Yellowstone,  and  found  there  little 
to  study.  The  Geysers  were  an  old  story ;  the  Snake  River  posed  no 
vital  statistics  except  in  its  fordings ;  even  the  Tetons  were  as  calm 
as  they  were  lovely ;  while  the  wapiti  and  bear,  innocent  of  strikes 
and  corners,  laid  no  traps.  In  return  the  party  treated  them  with 
affection.  Never  did  a  band  less  bloody  or  blood-thirsty  wander  over 
the  roof  of  the  continent.  Hay  loved  as  little  as  Adams  did,  the  labor 
of  skinning  and  butchering  big  game ;  he  had  even  outgrown  the  sedate, 
middle-aged,  meditative  joy  of  duck-shooting,  and  found  the  trout  of  the 
Yellowstone  too  easy  a  prey.  Hallett  Phillips  himself,  who  managed  the 
party,  loved  to  play  Indian  hunter  without  hunting  so  much  as  a  field- 
20 


306  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENKY  ADAMS 

mouse;  Iddings  the  geologist  was  reduced  to  shooting  only  for  the  table, 
and  the  guileless  prattle  of  Billy  Hofer  alone  taught  the  simple  life. 
Compared  with  the  Rockies  of  1871,  the  sense  of  wildness  had  vanished ; 
one  saw  no  possible  adventures  except  to  break  one's  neck  as  in  chasing 
an  aniseed  fox.  Only  the  more  intelligent  ponies  scented  an  occasional 
friendly  and  sociable  bear. 

When  the  party  came  out  of  the  Yellowstone,  Adams  went  on  alone 
to  Seattle  and  Vancouver  to  inspect  the  last  American  railway-systems 
yet  untried.  They,  too,  offered  little  new  learning,  and  no  sooner  had 
he  finished  this  debauch  of  northwestern  geography  than  with  desperate 
thirst  for  exhausting  the  American  field,  he  set  out  for  Mexico  and  the 
Gulf,  making  a  sweep  of  the  Caribbean  and  cleaning  up,  in  these  six  or 
eight  months,  at  least  twenty  thousand  miles  of  American  land  and 
water. 

He  was  beginning  to  think,  when  he  got  back  to  Washington  in 
April,  1895,  that  he  knew  enough  about  the  edges  of  life, — tropical 
islands,  mountain  solitudes,  archaic  law  and  retrograde  types.  Infinitely 
more  amusing  and  incomparably  more  picturesque  than  civilisation, 
they  educated  only  artists,  and,  as  one's  sixtieth  year  approached,  the 
artist  began  to  die ;  only  a  certain  intens.e  cerebral  restlessness  survived 
which  no  longer  responded  to  sensual  stimulants;  one  was  driven  from 
beauty  to  beauty  as  though  art  were  a  trotting-match.  For  this,  one 
was  in  some  degree  prepared,  for  the  old  man  had  been  a  stage-type 
since  drama  began ;  but  one  felt  some  perplexity  to  account  for  failure 
on  the  opposite,  or  mechanical  side,  where  nothing  but  cerebral  action 
was  needed. 

Taking  for  granted  that  the  alternative  to  art  was  arithmetic,  he 
plunged  deep  into  statistics,  fancying  that  education  would  find  the 
surest  bottom  there ;  and  the  study  proved  the  easiest  he  had  ever 
approached.  Even  the  governments  volunteered  unlimited  statistics,  end 
less  columns  of  figures,  bottomless  averages  merely  for  the  asking. 
At  the  Statistical  Bureau,  Worthington  Ford  supplied  any  material  that 
curiosity  could  imagine  for  filling  the  vast  gaps  of  ignorance,  and  methods 
for  applying  the  plasters  of  fact.  One  seemed  for  awhile  to  be  winning 
ground,  and  one's  averages  projected  themselves  as  laws  into  the  future. 
Perhaps  the  most  perplexing  part  of  the  study  lay  in  the  attitude  of  the 


SILENCE  307 

statisticians,  who  showed  no  enthusiastic  confidence  in  their  own  figures. 
They  should  have  reached  certainty,  but  they  talked  like  other  men 
who  knew  less.  The  method  did  not  result  in  faith.  Indeed,  every 
increase  of  mass, — of  volume  and  velocity, — seemed  to  bring  in  new 
elements,  and,  at  last,  a  scholar,  fresh  in  arithmetic  and  ignorant  of 
algebra,  fell  into  a  superstitious  terror  of  complexity  as  the  sink  of  facts. 
Nothing  came  out  as  it  should.  In  principle,  according  to  figures,  any 
one  could  set  up  or  pull  down  a  society.  One  could  frame  no  sort  of 
satisfactory  answer  to  the  constructive  doctrines  of  Adam  Smith,  or  to  the 
destructive  criticisms  of  Karl  Marx  or  to  the  anarchistic  imprecations  of 
Elisee  Reclus.  One  revelled  at  will  in  the  ruin  of  every  society  in  the 
past,  and  rejoiced  in  proving  the  prospective  overthrow  of  every  society 
that  seemed  possible  in  the  future;  but  meanwhile  these  societies  which 
violated  every  law,  moral,  arithmetical  and  economical,  not  only  propa 
gated  each  other  but  produced  also  fresh  complexities  with  every  propagation 
and  developed  mass  with  every  complexity. 

The  human  factor  was  worse  still.  Since  the  stupefying  discovery 
of  Pteraspis  in  1867,  nothing  had  so  confused  the  student  as  the  conduct 
of  mankind  in  the  fin-de-siecle.  No  one  seemed  very  much  concerned 
about  this  world  or  the  future,  unless  it  might  be  the  anarchists, 
and  they  only  because  they  disliked  the  present.  Adams  disliked  the 
present  as  much  as  they  did,  and  his  interest  in  future  society  was 
becoming  slight,  yet  he  was  kept  alive  by  irritation  at  finding  his 
life  so  thin  and  fruitless.  Meanwhile  he  watched  mankind  march  on, 
like  a  train  of  pack-horses  on  the  Snake  River,  tumbling  from  one 
morass  into  another,  and  at  short  intervals,  for  no  reason  but  temper, 
falling  to  butchery,  like  Cain.  Since  1850,  massacres  had  become  so 
common  that  society  scarcely  noticed  them  unless  they  summed  up 
hundreds  of  thousands,  as  in  Armenia ;  wars  had  been  almost  contin 
uous,  and  were  beginning  again  in  Cuba,  threatening  in  South  Africa, 
and  possible  in  Manchuria;  yet  impartial  judges  thought  them  all  not 
merely  unnecessary  but  foolish, — induced  by  greed  of  the  coarsest  class, 
as  though  the  Pharaohs  or  the  Romans  were  still  robbing  their  neigh 
bors.  The  robbery  might  be  natural  and  inevitable,  but  the  murder 
seemed  altogether  archaic. 

At  one  moment  of  perplexity  to    account  for   this  trait  of  Pteraspis, 


308  THE  EDUCATION  OP  HENRY  ADAMS 

or  shark,  which  seemed  to  have  survived  every  moral  improvement  of 
society,  he  took  to  study  of  the  religious  press.  Possibly  growth  in 
human  nature  might  show  itself  there.  He  found  no  need  to  speak  un 
kindly  of  it ;  but,  as  an  agent  of  motion,  he  preferred  on  the  whole  the 
vigor  of  the  shark,  with  its  chances  of  betterment ;  and  he  very 
gravely  doubted,  from  his  aching  consciousness  of  religious  void,  whether 
any  large  fraction  of  society  cared  for  a  future  life,  or  even  for  the 
present  one,  thirty  years  hence.  Not  an  act,  or  an  expression,  or  an 
image,  showed  depth  of  faith  or  hope. 

The  object  of  education,  therefore,  was  changed.  For  many  years 
it  had  lost  itself  in  studying  what  the  world  had  ceased  to  care  for; 
if  it  were  to  begin  again,  it  must  try  to  find  out  what  the  mass  of 
mankind  did  care  for,  and  why.  Religion,  politics,  statistics,  travel  had 
thus  far  led  to  nothing.  Even  the  Chicago  Fair  had  only  confused 
the  roads.  Accidental  education  could  go  no  further,  for  one's  mind 
was  already  littered  and  stuffed  beyond  hope  with  the  millions  of  chance 
images  stored  away  without  order  in  the  memory.  One  might  as  well 
try  to  educate  a  gravel-pit.  The  task  was  futile,  which  disturbed  a 
student  less  than  the  discovery  that,  in  pursuing  it,  he  was  becoming 
himself  ridiculous.  Nothing  is  more  tiresome  than  a  superannuated 
pedagogue. 

For  the  moment  he  was  rescued,  as  often  before,  by  a  woman. 
Towards  midsummer,  1895,  Mrs.  Cabot  Lodge  bade  him  follow  her  to 
Europe  with  the  Senator  and  her  two  sons.  The  study  of  history  is 
useful  to  the  historian  by  teaching  him  his  ignorance  of  women ;  and 
the  mass  of  this  ignorance  crushes  one  who  is  familiar  enough  with 
what  are  called  historical  sources  to  realise  how  few  women  have  ever 
been  known.  The  woman  who  is  known  only  through  a  man  is  known 
wrong,  and  excepting  one  or  two  like  Madame  de  Sevigne,  no  woman 
has  pictured  herself.  The  American  woman  of  the  nineteenth  century 
will  live  only  as  the  man  saw  her ;  probably  she  will  be  less  known 
than  the  woman  of  the  eighteenth ;  none  of  the  female  descendants  of 
Abigail  Adams  can  ever  be  nearly  so  familiar  as  her  letters  have  made 
her ;  and  all  this  is  pure  loss  to  history,  for  the  American  woman  of 
the  nineteenth  century  was  much  better  company  than  the  American 
man ;  she  was  probably  much  better  company  than  her  grandmothers. 


SILENCE  309 

With  Mrs.  Lodge  and  her  husband,  senator  since  1893,  Adams's 
relations  had  been  those  of  elder  brother  or  uncle  since  1871  when 
Cabot  Lodge  had  left  his  examination-papers  on  Assistant  Professor 
Adams's  desk,  to  take  the  train  for  Washington  to  get  married.  With 
Lodge  himself,  as  scholar,  fellow  instructor,  co-editor  of  the  North 
American  Review  and  political  reformer,  from  1873  to  1878,  he  had 
worked  intimately,  but  with  him  afterwards  as  politician  he  had  not 
much  relation ;  and  since  Lodge  had  suffered  what  Adams  thought  the 
misfortune  of  becoming  not  only  a  senator  but  a  senator  from  Massa 
chusetts, — a  singular  social  relation  which  Adams  had  known  only  as 
fatal  to  friends, — a  superstitious  student  intimate  with  the  laws  of 
historical  fatality,  would  rather  have  recognised  him  only  as  an  enemy ; 
but  apart  from  this  accident  he  valued  Lodge  highly,  and  in  the  waste 
places  of  average  humanity  had  been  greatly  dependent  on  his  house. 
Senators  can  never  be  approached  with  safety,  but  a  Senator,  who  has  a 
very  superior  wife  and  several  superior  children  who  feel  no  deference  for 
Senators  as  such,  may  be  approached  at  times  with  relative  impunity 
while  they  keep  him  under  restraint. 

Where  Mrs.  Lodge  summoned,  one  followed  with  gratitude,  and  so 
it  chanced  that  in  August  one  found  oneself  for  the  first  time  at  Caen, 
Coutances  and  Mont  St.  Michel  in  Normandy.  If  history  had  a 
chapter  with  which  he  thought  himself  familiar,  it  was  the  twelfth  and 
thirteenth  centuries ;  yet  so  little  has  labor  to  do  with  knowledge 
that  these  bare  playgrounds  of  the  lecture-system  turned  into  green 
and  verdurous  virgin  forests  merely  through  the  medium  of  younger 
eyes  and  fresher  minds.  His  German  bias  must  have  given  his  youth 
a  terrible  twist,  for  the  Lodges  saw  at  a  glance  what  he  had  thought 
unessential  because  un-German.  They  breathed  native  air  in  the  Nor 
mandy  of  1200,  a  compliment  which  would  have  seemed  to  the  Senator 
lacking  in  taste  or  even  in  sense  when  addressed  to  one  of  a  class  of  men 
who  passed  life  in  trying  to  persuade  themselves  and  the  public  that 
they  breathed  nothing  less  American  than  a  blizzard ;  but  this  atmos 
phere,  in  the  touch  of  a  real  emotion,  betrayed  the  unconscious  humor 
of  the  senatorial  mind.  In  the  thirteenth  century,  by  an  unusual 
chance,  even  a  senator  became  natural,  simple,  interested,  cultivated, 
artistic,  liberal, — genial. 


310  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

Through  the  Lodge  eyes  the  old  problem  became  new  and  personal ; 
it  threw  off  all  association  with  the  German  lecture-room.  One  could 
not  at  first  see  what  this  novelty  meant ;  it  had  the  air  of  mere  anti 
quarian  emotion  like  Wenlock  Abbey  and  Pteraspis ;  but  it  expelled 
archaic  law  and  antiquarianism  once  for  all,  without  seeming  conscious 
of  it ;  and  Adams  drifted  back  to  Washington  with  a  new  sense  of 
history.  Again  he  wandered  south,  and  in  April  returned  to  Mexico 
with  the  Camerons  to  study  the  charms  of  pulque  and  Churriguerresque 
architecture.  In  May  he  ran  through  Europe  again  with  Hay,  as  far 
south  as  Ravenna.  There  came  the  end  of  the  passage.  After  thus 
covering  once  more,  in  1896,  many  thousand  miles  of  the  old  trails, 
Adams  went  home  in  October,  with  everyone  else,  to  elect  McKinley 
President  and  to  start  the  world  anew. 

For  the  old  world  of  public  men  and  measures  since  1870,  Adams 
wept  no  tears.  Within  or  without,  during  or  after  it,  as  partisan  or 
historian,  he  never  saw  anything  to  admire  in  it,  or  anything  he 
wanted  to  save;  and  in  this  respect  he  reflected  only  the  public  mind 
which  balanced  itself  so  exactly  between  the  unpopularity  of  both 
parties  as  to  express  no  sympathy  with  either.  Even  among  the  most 
powerful  men  of  that  generation  he  knew  none  who  had  a  good  word 
to  say  for  it.  No  period  so  thoroughly  ordinary  had  been  known  in 
American  politics  since  Christopher  Columbus  first  disturbed  the  balance 
of  American  society ;  but  the  natural  result  of  such  lack  of  interest  in 
public  affairs,  in  a  small  society  like  that  of  Washington,  led  an  idle 
bystander  to  depend  abjectly  on  intimacy  of  private  relation.  One 
dragged  oneself  down  the  long  vista  of  Pennsylvania  Avenue,  by 
leaning  heavily  on  one's  friends,  and  avoiding  to  look  at  anything 
else.  Thus  life  had  grown  narrow  with  years,  more  and  more  concen 
trated  on  the  circle  of  houses  round  La  Fayette  Square,  which  had 
no  direct  or  personal  share  in  power  except  in  the  case  of  Mr.  Elaine 
whose  tumultuous  struggle  for  existence  held  him  apart.  Suddenly  Mr. 
McKinley  entered  the  White  House  and  laid  his  hand  heavily  on  this 
special  group.  In  a  moment  the  whole  nest,  so  slowly  constructed,  was 
torn  to  pieces  and  scattered  over  the  world.  Adams  found  himself 
alone.  John  Hay  took  his  orders  for  London.  Rockhill  departed  to 
Athens.  Cecil  Spring  Rice  had  been  buried  in  Persia.  Cameron 


SILENCE  311 

refused  to  remain  in  public  life  either  at  home  or  abroad,  and  broke  up 
his  house  on  the  Square.  Only  the  Lodges  and  Roosevelts  remained, 
but  even  they  were  at  once  absorbed  in  the  interests  of  power.  Since 
1861,  no  such  social  convulsion  had  occurred. 

Even  this  was  not  quite  the  worst.  To  one  whose  interests  lay 
chiefly  in  foreign  affairs,  and  who,  at  this  moment,  felt  most  strongly 
the  nightmare  of  Cuban,  Hawaiian  and  Nicaraguan  chaos,  the  man  in 
the  State  Department  seemed  more  important  than  the  man  in  the  White 
House.  Adams  knew  no  one  in  the  United  States  fit  to  manage  these 
matters  in  the  face  of  a  hostile  Europe,  and  had  no  candidate  to 
propose ;  but  he  was  shocked  beyond  all  restraints  of  expression  to  learn 
that  the  President  meant  to  put  Senator  John  Sherman  in  the  State 
Department  in  order  to  make  a  place  for  Mr.  Hanna  in  the  Senate. 
Grant  himself  had  done  nothing  that  seemed  so  bad  as  this  to  one  who 
had  lived  long  enough  to  distinguish  between  the  ways  of  presidential 
jobbery,  if  not  between  the  jobs.  John  Sherman,  otherwise  admirably 
fitted  for  the  place,  a  friendly  influence  for  nearly  forty  years,  was  no 
toriously  feeble  and  quite  senile,  so  that  the  intrigue  seemed  to  Adams  the 
betrayal  of  an  old  friend  as  well  as  of  the  State  Department.  One 
might  have  shrugged  one's  shoulders  had  the  President  named  Mr. 
Hanna  his  Secretary  of  State,  but  Mr.  Hanna  was  a  man  of  force  if 
not  of  experience,  and  selections  much  worse  than  this  had  often  turned 
out  well  enough ;  but  John  Sherman  must  inevitably  and  tragically 
break  down. 

The  prospect  for  once  was  not  less  vile  than  the  men.  One  can 
bear  coldly  the  jobbery  of  enemies,  but  not  that  of  friends,  and  to  Adams 
this  kind  of  jobbery  seemed  always  infinitely  worse  than  all  the  petty 
money-bribes  ever  exploited  by  the  newspapers.  Nor  was  the  matter 
improved  by  hints  that  the  President  might  call  John  Hay  to  the 
Department  whenever  John  Sherman  should  retire.  Indeed,  had  Hay 
been  even  unconsciously  party  to  such  an  intrigue,  he  would  have  put 
an  end,  once  for  all,  to  further  concern  in  public  affairs  on  his  friend's 
part;  but  even  without  this  last  disaster,  one  felt  that  Washington  had 
become  no  longer  habitable.  Nothing  was  left  there  but  solitary 
contemplation  of  Mr.  McKinley's  ways  which  were  not  likely  to  be 
more  amusing  than  the  ways  of  his  predecessors ;  or  of  senatorial  ways, 


312  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

which  offered  no  novelty  of  what  the  French  language  expressively  calls 
embetement;  or  of  poor  Mr.  Sherman's  ways  which  would  surely  cause 
anguish  to  his  friends.  Once  more,  one  must  go! 

Nothing  was  easier!  On  and  off,  one  had  done  the  same  thing 
since  the  year  1858,  at  frequent  intervals,  and  had  now  reached  the  month 
of  March,  1897 ;  yet,  as  the  whole  result  of  six  years'  dogged  effort  to 
begin  a  new  education,  one  could  not  recommend  it  to  the  young.  The 
outlook  lacked  hope.  The  object  of  travel  had  become  more  and  more 
dim,  ever  since  the  gibbering  ghost  of  the  Civil  Law  had  been  locked 
in  its  dark  closet,  as  far  back  as  1860.  Noah's  dove  had  not  searched 
the  earth  for  resting-places  so  carefully,  or  with  so  little  success.  Any 
spot  on  land  or  water  satisfies  a  dove  who  wants  and  finds  rest ;  but 
no  perch  suits  a  dove  of  sixty  years  old,  alone  and  uneducated,  who 
has  lost  his  taste  even  for  olives.  To  this,  also,  the  young  may  be 
driven,  as  education,  and  the  lesson  fails  in  humor ;  but  it  may  be  worth 
knowing  to  some  of  them  that  the  planet  offers  hardly  a  dozen  places 
where  an  elderly  man  can  pass  a  week  alone  without  ennui,  and  none 
at  all  where  he  can  pass  a  year. 

Irritated  by  such  complaints,  the  world  naturally  answers  that  no 
man  of  sixty  should  live,  which  is  doubtless  true,  though  not  original. 
The  man  of  sixty,  with  a  certain  irritability  proper  to  his  years,  retorts 
that  the  world  has  no  business  to  throw  on  him  the  task  of  removing 
its  carrion,  and  that  while  he  remains  he  has  a  right  to  require  amuse 
ment, — or  at  least  education,  since  this  costs  nothing  to  anyone, — and 
that  a  world  which  cannot  educate,  will  not  amuse,  and  is  ugly  besides, 
has  even  less  right  to  exist  than  he.  Both  views  seem  sound;  but 
the  world  wearily  objects  to  be  called  by  epithets  what  society  always 
admits  in  practice ;  for  no  one  likes  to  be  told  that  he  is  a  bore,  or 
ignorant,  or  even  ugly;  and  having  nothing  to  say  in  its  defense,  it 
rejoins  that,  whatever  license  is  pardonable  in  youth,  the  man  of  sixty 
who  wishes  consideration  had  better  hold  his  tongue.  This  truth  also 
has  the  defect  of  being  too  true.  The  rule  holds  equally  for  men  of 
half  that  age.  Only  the  very  young  have  the  right  to  betray  their 
ignorance  or  ill-breeding.  Elderly  people  commonly  know  enough  not  to 
betray  themselves. 

Exceptions  are  plenty  on  both  sides,  as  the  Senate  knew  to  its  acute 


SILENCE  313 

suffering;  but  young  or  old,  women  or  men,  seemed  agreed  on  one  point 
with  singular  unanimity  ;  — each  praised  silence  in  others.  Of  all  charac 
teristics  in  human  nature,  this  has  been  one  of  the  most  abiding.  Mere 
superficial  gleaning  of  what,  in  the  long  history  of  human  expression,  has 
been  said  by  the  fool  or  unsaid  by  the  wise,  shows  that,  for  once,  no 
difference  of  opinion  has  ever  existed  on  this.  "Even  a  fool,"  said  the 
wisest  of  men,  "when  he  holdeth  his  peace,  is  counted  wise,"  and  still 
more  often,  the  wisest  of  men,  when  he  spoke  the  highest  wisdom,  has 
been  counted  a  fool.  They  agreed  only  on  the  merits  of  silence  in  others. 
Sophocles  made  remarks  in  its  favor,  which  should  have  struck  the 
Athenians  as  new  to  them  ;  but  of  late  the  repetition  had  grown  tiresome. 
Thomas  Carlyle  vociferated  his  admiration  of  it.  Matthew  Arnold 
thought  it  the  best  form  of  expression ;  and  Adams  thought  Matthew 
Arnold  the  best  form  of  expression  in  his  time.  Algernon  Swinburne 
called  it  the  most  noble  to  the  end.  Alfred  de  Vigny's  dying  wolf 
remarked : — 

"A   voir   ce   que   1'on   fut   sur   terre   et   ce   qu'on   laisse, 
Seul   le   silence   est  grand  ;    tout   le   reste   est  faiblesse." 

'When   one   thinks   what   one   leaves  in  the   world   when   one   dies, 
Only  silence   is   strong, — all   the   rest  is   but  lies.' 

Even  Byron,  whom  a  more  brilliant  era  of  genius  seemed  to  have  decided 
to  be  but  an  indifferent  poet,  had  ventured  to  affirm  that — 

'The  Alp's  snow  summit  nearer  heaven  is  seen 
Than  the  volcano' s  fierce  eruptive  crest ; ' 

with  other  verses,  to  the  effect  that  words  are  but  a  "  temporary  torturing 
flame;"  of  which  no  one  knew  more  than  himself.  The  evidence  of  the 
poets  could  not  be  more  emphatic : — 

'  Silent,    while   years   engrave   the    brow ! 
Silent,  — the   best   are   silent   now  I ' 

Although  none  of  these  great  geniuses  had  shown  faith  in  silence  as 


314  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

a  cure  for  their  own  ills  or  ignorance,  all  of  them,  and  all  philosophy 
after  them,  affirmed  that  no  man,  even  at  sixty,  had  ever  been  known  to 
attain  knowledge ;  but  that  a  very  few  were  believed  to  have  attained 
ignorance,  which  was  in  result  the  same.  More  than  this,  in  every  society 
worth  the  name,  the  man  of  sixty  had  been  encouraged  to  ride  this 
hobby, — the  Pursuit  of  Ignorance  in  Silence, — as  though  it  were  the 
easiest  way  to  get  rid  of  him.  In  America  the  silence  was  more  oppres 
sive  than  the  ignorance ;  but  perhaps  elsewhere  the  world  might  still  hide 
some  haunt  of  /utilitarian  silence  where  content  reigned, — although  long 
search  had  not  revealed  it, — and  so  the  pilgrimage  began  anew! 

The  first  step  led  to  London  where  John  Hay  was  to  be  established. 
One  had  seen  so  many  American  ministers  received  in  London  that  the 
Lord  Chamberlain  himself  scarcely  knew  more  about  it ;  education  could 
not  be  expected  there ;  but  there  Adams  arrived,  April  21,  1897,  as 
though  thirty-six  years  were  so  many  days,  for  Queen  Victoria  still 
reigned  and  one  saw  little  change  in  St.  James's  Street.  True,  Carlton 
House  Terrace,  like  the  streets  of  Rome,  actually  squeaked  and  gibbered 
with  ghosts,  till  one  felt  like  Odysseus  before  the  press  of  shadows, 
daunted  by  a  "  bloodless  fear ; "  but  in  spring  London  is  pleasant,  and 
it  was  more  cheery  than  ever  in  May,  1897,  when  everyone  was 
welcoming  the  return  of  life  after  the  long  winter  since  1893.  One's 
fortunes,  or  one's  friends'  fortunes,  were  again  in  flood. 

This  amusement  could  not  be  prolonged,  for  one  found  oneself  the 
oldest  Englishman  in  England,  much  too  familiar  with  family  jars  better 
forgotten,  and  old  traditions  better  unknown.  No  wrinkled  Tannhauser, 
returning  to  the  Wartburg,  needed  a  wrinkled  Venus  to  show  him  that 
he  was  no  longer  at  home,  and  that  even  penitence  was  a  sort  of 
impertinence.  He  slipped  away  to  Paris,  and  set  up  a  household  at  St. 
Germain  where  he  taught  and  learned  French  history  for  nieces  who 
swarmed  under  the  venerable  cedars  of  the  Pavilion  d'Angouleme,  and 
rode  about  the  green  forest-alleys  of  St.  Germain  and  Marly.  From 
time  to  time  Hay  wrote  humorous  laments,  but  nothing  occurred  to 
break  the  summer-peace  of  the  stranded  Tannhauser,  who  slowly  began 
to  feel  at  home  in  France  as  in  other  countries  he  had  thought  more 
homelike.  At  length,  like  other  dead  Americans,  he  went  to  Paris 
because  he  could  go  nowhere  else,  and  lingered  there  till  the  Hays  came 


SILENCE  315 

by,    in    January,  1898 ;    and   Mrs.  Hay,  who   had    been    a   staunch   and 
strong  ally  for  twenty  years,  bade  him  go  with  them  to  Egypt. 

Adams  cared  little  to  see  Egypt  again,  but  he  was  glad  to  see 
Hay,  and  readily  drifted  after  him  to  the  Nile.  What  they  saw  and 
what  they  said  had  as  little  to  do  with  education  as  possible,  until 
one  evening,  as  they  were  looking  at  the  sun  set  across  the  Nile  from 
Assouan,  Spencer  Eddy  brought  them  a  telegram  to  announce  the 
sinking  of  the  Maine  in  Havana  harbor.  This  was  the  greatest  stride 
in  education  since  1865,  but  what  did  it  teach  ?  One  leant  on  a 
fragment  of  column  in  the  great  hall  at  Karnak  and  watched  a  jackal 
creep  down  the  debris  of  ruin.  The  jackal's  ancestors  had  surely  crept 
up  the  same  wall  when  it  was  building.  What  was  his  view  about 
the  value  of  silence?  One  lay  in  the  sands  and  watched  the  expression 
of  the  Sphinx.  Brooks  Adams  had  taught  him  that  the  relation  between 
civilisations  was  that  of  trade.  Henry  wandered,  or  was  storm-driven, 
down  the  coast.  He  tried  to  trace  out  the  ancient  harbor  of  Ephesus. 
He  went  over  to  Athens,  picked  up  Rockhill,  and  searched  for  the 
harbor  of  Tiryns ;  together  they  went  on  to  Constantinople  and  studied 
the  great  walls  of  Constantine  and  the  greater  domes  of  Justinian. 
His  hobby  had  turned  into  a  camel,  and  he  hoped,  if  he  rode  long 
enough  in  silence,  that  at  last  he  might  come  on  a  city  of  thought 
along  the  great  highways  of  exchange. 


CHAPTER    XXIV 

1898-1899 

The  summer  of  the  Spanish  war  began  the  Indian  Summer  of  life 
to  one  who  had  reached  sixty  years  of  age,  and  cared  only  to  reap  in 
peace  such  harvest  as  these  sixty  years  had  yielded.  He  had  reason  to 
be  more  than  content  with  it.  Since  1864  he  had  felt  no  such  sense  of 
power  and  momentum,  and  had  seen  no  such  number  of  personal  friends 
wielding  it.  The  sense  of  solidarity  counts  for  much  in  one's  contentment, 
but  the  sense  of  winning  one's  game  counts  for  more ;  and  in  London, 
in  1898,  the  scene  was  singularly  interesting  to  the  last  survivor  of  the 
Legation  of  1861.  He  thought  himself  perhaps  the  only  person  living 
who  could  get  full  enjoyment  of  the  drama.  He  carried  every  scene  of 
it,  in  a  century  and  a  half  since  the  Stamp  Act,  quite  alive  in  his  mind, 
— all  the  interminable  disputes  of  his  disputatious  ancestors  as  far  back 
as  the  year  1750, — as  well  as  his  own  insignificance  in  the  civil  war, 
every  step  in  which  had  the  object  of  bringing  England  into  an  American 
system.  For  this  they  had  written  libraries  of  argument  and  remonstrance, 
and  had  piled  war  on  war,  losing  their  tempers  for  life,  and  souring 
the  gentle  and  patient  Puritan  nature  of  their  descendants,  until  even 
their  private  secretaries  at  times  used  language  almost  intemperate ;  and 
suddenly,  by  pure  chance,  the  blessing  fell  on  Hay.  After  two  hundred 
years  of  stupid  and  greedy  blundering,  which  no  argument  and  no  violence 
affected,  the  people  of  England  learned  their  lesson  just  at  the  moment 
when  Hay  would  otherwise  have  faced  a  flood  of  the  old  anxieties. 
Hay  himself  scarcely  knew  how  grateful  he  should  be,  for  to  him  the 
change  came  almost  of  course.  He  saw  only  the  necessary  stages  that 
had  led  to  it,  and  to  him  they  seemed  natural;  but  to  Adams,  still 
316 


INDIAN  SUMMER  317 

living  in  the  atmosphere  of  Palmerston  and  John  Russell,  the  sudden 
appearance  of  Germany  as  the  grizzly  terror  which,  in  twenty  years 
effected  what  Adamses  had  tried  for  two  hundred  in  vain, — frightened 
England  into  America's  arms, — seemed  as  melodramatic  as  any  plot  of 
Napoleon  the  Great.  He  could  feel  only  the  sense  of  satisfaction  at 
seeing  the  diplomatic  triumph  of  all  his  family,  since  the  breed  existed, 
at  last  realised  under  his  own  eyes  for  the  advantage  of  his  oldest  and 
closest  ally. 

This  was  history,  not  education,  yet  it  taught  something  exceed 
ingly  serious,  if  not  ultimate,  could  one  trust  the  lesson.  For  the  first 
time  in  his  life,  he  felt  a  sense  of  possible  purpose  working  itself  out  in 
history.  Probably  no  one  else  on  this  earthly  planet, — not  even  Hay, 
— could  have  come  out  on  precisely  such  extreme  personal  satisfaction, 
but  as  he  sat  at  Hay's  table,  listening  to  any  member  of  the  British 
Cabinet,  for  all  were  alike  now,  discuss  the  Philippines  as  a  question 
of  balance  of  power  in  the  east,  he  could  see  that  the  family  work 
of  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  fell  at  once  into  the  grand  perspective 
of  true  empire-building,  which  Hay's  work  set  off  with  artistic  skill. 
The  roughness  of  the  archaic  foundations  looked  stronger  and  larger  in 
scale  for  the  refinement  and  certainty  of  the  arcade.  In  the  long  list 
of  famous  American  ministers  in  London,  none  could  have  given  the 
work  quite  the  completeness,  the  harmony,  the  perfect  ease  of  Hay. 

Never  before  had  Adams  been  able  to  discern  the  working  of 
law  in  history,  which  was  the  reason  of  his  failure  in  teaching  it,  for 
chaos  cannot  be  taught ;  but  he  thought  he  had  a  personal  property 
by  inheritance  in  this  proof  of  sequence  and  intelligence  in  the  affairs  of 
man, — a  property  which  no  one  else  had  right  to  dispute ;  and  this 
personal  triumph  left  him  a  little  cold  towards  the  other  diplomatic 
results  of  the  war.  He  knew  that  Porto  Rico  must  be  taken,  but  he 
would  have  been  glad  to  escape  the  Philippines.  Apart  from  too  inti 
mate  an  acquaintance  with  the  value  of  islands,  in  the  South  Seas,  he 
knew  the  West  Indies  well  enough  to  be  assured  that,  whatever  the 
American  people  might  think  or  say  about  it,  they  would  sooner  or 
later  have  to  police  those  islands,  not  against  Europe,  but  for  Europe, 
and  America  too.  Education  on  the  outskirts  of  civilised  life  teaches 
not  very  much,  but  it  taught  this ;  and  one  felt  no  call  to  shoulder  the 


318  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

load  of  archipelagoes  in  the  antipodes  when  one  was  trying  painfully 
to  pluck  up  courage  to  face  the  labor  of  shouldering  archipelagoes  at 
home.  The  country  decided  otherwise,  and  one  acquiesced  readily  enough, 
since  the  matter  concerned  only  the  public  willingness  to  carry  loads ;  in 
London,  the  balance  of  power  in  the  east  came  alone  into  discussion  ; 
and  in  every  point  of  view  one  had  as  much  reason  to  be  gratified 
with  the  result  as  though  one  had  shared  in  the  danger,  instead  of 
being  vigorously  employed  in  looking  on  from  a  great  distance.  After 
all,  friends  had  done  the  work,  if  not  oneself,  and  he  too  serves  a 
certain  purpose  who  only  stands  and  cheers. 

In  June,  at  the  crisis  of  interest,  the  Camerons  came  over,  and 
took  the  fine  old  house  of  Surrenden  Dering  in  Kent  which  they 
made  a  sort  of  country-house  to  the  Embassy.  Kent  has  charms 
rivalling  those  of  Shropshire,  and,  even  compared  with  the  many  beautiful 
places  scattered  along  the  Welsh  border,  few  are  nobler  or  more  genial 
than  Surrenden  with  its  unbroken  descent  from  the  Saxons,  its  avenues, 
its  terraces,  its  deer-park,  its  large  repose  on  the  Kentish  hill-side, 
and  its  broad  outlook  over  what  was  once  the  forest  of  Anderida.  Filled 
with  a  constant  stream  of  guests,  the  house  seemed  to  wait  for  the 
chance  to  show  its  charms  to  the  American,  with  whose  activity  the 
whole  world  was  resounding ;  and  never  since  the  battle  of  Hastings 
could  the  little  telegraph  office  of  the  Kentish  village  have  done  such  work. 
There,  on  a  hot  July  4,  1898,  to  an  expectant  group  under  the  shady  trees, 
came  the  telegram  announcing  the  destruction  of  the  Spanish  Armada, 
as  it  might  have  come  to  Queen  Elizabeth  in  1588 ;  and  there,  later  in 
the  season,  came  the  order  summoning  Hay  to  the  State  Department. 

Hay  had  no  wish  to  be  Secretary  of  State.  He  much  preferred  to 
remain  Ambassador,  and  his  friends  were  quite  as  cold  about  it  as  he.  No 
one  knew  so  well  what  sort  of  strain  falls  on  Secretaries  of  State,  or  how 
little  strength  he  had  in  reserve  against  it.  Even  at  Surrenden  he 
showed  none  too  much  endurance,  and  he  would  gladly  have  found  a 
valid  excuse  for  refusing.  The  discussion  on  both  sides  was  earnest,  but 
the  decided  voice  of  the  conclave  was  that,  though  if  he  were  a  mere 
office-seeker  he  might  certainly  decline  promotion,  if  he  were  a  member 
of  the  government  he  could  not.  No  serious  statesman  could  accept  a 
favor  and  refuse  a  service.  Doubtless  he  might  refuse,  but  in  that 


INDIAN  SUMMER  319 

case  he  must  resign.  The  amusement  of  making  Presidents  has  keen 
fascination  for  idle  American  hands,  but  these  black-arts  have  the  old 
drawback  of  all  deviltry ; — one  must  serve  the  spirit  one  evokes,  even 
though  the  service  were  perdition  to  body  and  soul.  For  him,  no  doubt, 
the  service,  though  hard,  might  bring  some  share  of  profit,  but  for  the 
friends  who  gave  this  unselfish  decision,  all  would  prove  loss.  For  one, 
Adams  on  that  subject  had  become  a  little  daft.  No  one  in  his  experi 
ence  had  ever  passed  unscathed  through  that  malarious  marsh.  In  his 
fancy,  office  was  poison ;  it  killed,  —  body  and  soul,  —  physically  and 
socially.  Office  was  more  poisonous  than  priestcraft  or  pedagogy  in 
proportion  as  it  held  more  power;  but  the  poison  he  complained  of 
was  not  ambition ;  he  shared  none  of  Cardinal  Woolsey's  belated  penitence 
for  that  healthy  stimulant,  as  he  had  shared  none  of  the  fruits  ; — his  poison 
was  that  of  the  will, — the  distortion  of  sight, — the  warping  of  mind, — 
the  degradation  of  tissue, — the  coarsening  of  taste, — the  narrowing  of 
sympathy  to  the  emotions  of  a  caged  rat.  Hay  needed  no  office  in  order 
to  wield  influence.  For  him,  influence  lay  about  the  streets,  waiting  for 
him  to  stoop  to  it;  he  enjoyed  more  than  enough  power  without  office; 
no  one  of  his  position,  wealth  and  political  experience,  living  at  the  centre 
of  politics  in  contact  with  the  active  party  managers,  could  escape 
influence.  His  only  ambition  was  to  escape  annoyance,  and  no  one  knew 
better  than  he  that,  at  sixty  years  of  age,  sensitive  to  physical  strain, 
still  more  sensitive  to  brutality,  vindictiveness  or  betrayal,  he  took 
office  at  cost  of  life. 

Neither  he  nor  any  of  the  Surrenden  circle  made  pretence  of 
gladness  at  the  new  dignity,  for,  with  all  his  gaiety  of  manner  and 
lightness  of  wit,  he  took  dark  views  of  himself,  none  the  lighter  for 
their  humor,  and  his  obedience  to  the  President's  order  was  the 
gloomiest  acquiescence  he  had  ever  smiled.  Adams  took  dark  views, 
too,  not  so  much  on  Hay's  account  as  on  his  own,  for,  while  Hay 
had  at  least  the  honors  of  office,  his  friends  would  share  only  the 
ennuis  of  it ;  but,  as  usual  with  Hay,  nothing  was  gained  by  taking 
such  matters  solemnly,  and  old  habits  of  the  civil  war  left  their  mark 
of  military  drill  on  everyone  who  lived  through  it.  He  shouldered  his 
pack  and  started  for  home.  Adams  had  no  mind  to  lose  his  friend 
without  a  struggle,  though  he  had  never  known  such  sort  of  struggle 


320  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

to  avail.  The  chance  was  desperate,  but  he  could  not  afford  to  throw  it 
away ;  so,  as  soon  as  the  Surrenden  establishment  broke  up,  on  October 
17,  he  prepared  for  return  home,  and  on  November  13,  none  too  gladly, 
found  himself  again  gazing  into  La  Fayette  Square. 

He  had  made  another  false  start  and  lost  two  years  more  of 
education,  nor  had  he  excuse ;  for,  this  time,  neither  politics  nor  society 
drew  him  away  from  his  trail.  He  had  nothing  to  do  with  Hay's 
politics  at  home  or  abroad,  and  never  affected  agreement  with  his  views 
or  his  methods,  nor  did  Hay  care  whether  his  friends  agreed  or 
disagreed.  They  all  united  in  trying  to  help  each  other  to  get  along 
the  best  way  they  could,  and  all  they  tried  to  save  was  the  personal 
relation.  Even  there,  Adams  would  have  been  beaten,  had  he  not  been 
helped  by  Mrs.  Hay  who  saw  the  necessity  of  distraction,  and  led  her 
husband  into  the  habit  of  stopping  every  afternoon  to  take  his  friend  off 
for  an  hour's  walk,  followed  by  a  cup  of  tea  with  Mrs.  Hay  afterwards, 
and  a  chat  with  anyone  who  called. 

For  the  moment,  therefore,  the  situation  was  saved,  at  least  in 
outward  appearance,  and  Adams  could  go  back  to  his  own  pursuits  which 
were  slowly  taking  a  direction.  Perhaps  they  had  no  right  to  be  called 
pursuits,  for  in  truth  one  consciously  pursued  nothing,  but  drifted  as 
attraction  offered  itself.  The  short  session  broke  up  the  Washington 
circle,  so  that,  on  March  22,  Adams  was  able  to  sail  with  the  Lodges 
for  Europe  and  to  pass  April  in  Sicily  and  Rome. 

With  the  Lodges,  education  always  began  afresh.  Forty  years  had 
left  little  of  the  Palermo  that  Garibaldi  had  shown  to  the  boy  of  1860, 
but  Sicily  in  all  ages  seems  to  have  taught  only  catastrophe  and 
violence,  running  riot  on  that  theme  ever  since  Ulysses  began  its  study 
on  the  eye  of  Cyclops.  For  a  lesson  in  anarchy,  without  a  shade  of 
sequence,  Sicily  stands  alone  and  defies  evolution.  Syracuse  teaches  more 
than  Borne.  Yet  even  Rome  was  not  mute,  and  the  church  of  Ara  Coeli 
seemed  more  and  more  to  draw  all  the  threads  of  thought  to  a  centre, 
for  every  new  journey  led  back  to  its  steps, — Karnak,  Ephesus,  Delphi, 
Mycenae,  Constantinople,  Syracuse, — all  lying  on  the  road  to  the  Capitol. 
What  they  had  to  bring  by  way  of  intellectual  riches  could  not  yet  be 
discerned,  but  they  carried  camel-loads  of  moral ;  and  New  York  sent 
most  of  all,  for,  in  forty  years,  America  had  made  so  vast  a  stride  to 


INDIAN  SUMMER  321 

empire  that  the  world  of  1860  stood  already  on  a  distant  horizon  some 
where  on  the  same  plane  with  the  republic  of  Brutus  and  Cato,  while 
school-boys  read  of  Abraham  Lincoln  as  they  did  of  Julius  Caesar.  Vast 
swarms  of  Americans  knew  the  Civil  War  only  by  school  history,  as 
they  knew  the  story  of  Cromwell  or  Cicero,  and  were  as  familiar  with 
political  assassination  as  though  they  had  lived  under  Nero.  The  climax 
of  empire  could  be  seen  approaching,  year  after  year,  as  though  Sylla 
were  a  President  or  McKinley  a  Consul. 

Nothing  annoyed  Americans  more  than  to  be  told  this  simple  and 
obvious,  —  in  no  way  unpleasant — truth,  therefore  one  sat  silent  as  ever 
on  the  Capitol ;  but,  by  way  of  completing  the  lesson,  the  Lodges  added 
a  pilgrimage  to  Assisi  and  an  interview  with  St.  Francis,  whose  solution 
of  historical  riddles  seemed  the  most  satisfactory — or  sufficient  —  ever 
offered ;  worth  fully  forty  years'  more  study,  and  better  worth  it  than 
Gibbon  himself,  or  even  St.  Augustine,  St.  Ambrose  or  St.  Jerome.  The 
most  bewildering  effect  of  all  these  fresh  cross-lights  on  the  old  Assistant 
Professor  of  1874  was  due  to  the  astonishing  contrast  between  what  he 
had  taught  then  and  what  he  found  himself  confusedly  trying  to  learn 
five-and-twenty  years  afterwards,  —  between  the  twelfth-century  of  his 
thirtieth  and  that  of  his  sixtieth  years.  At  Harvard  College,  weary  of 
spirit  in  the  wastes  of  Anglo-Saxon  Law,  he  had  occasionally  given  way 
to  outbursts  of  derision  at  shedding  his  life-blood  for  the  sublime  truths 
of  Sac  and  Soc  :  — 

HIC   JACET 

HOMUNCULUS   SCRIPTOR 
DOCTOR  BARBARICTJS 

HENRICUS   ADAMS 

ADAE  FILIUS  ET  EVAE 

PRIMO  EXPLICUIT 

SOOT  AM 

The  Latin  was  as  twelfth-century  as  the  law,  and  he  meant  as  satire 

the  claim  that  he  had  been  first  to  explain  the  legal  meaning  of  Sac  and 

Soc,  although  any  German  professor  would  have  scorned  it  as  a  shameless 

and  presumptuous  bid  for  immortality ;  but  the  whole  point  of  view  had 

21 


322  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

vanished  in  1900.  Not  he,  but  Sir  Henry  Maine  and  Eudolph  Sohm 
were  the  parents  or  creators  of  Sac  and  Soc.  Convinced  that  the  clue  of 
religion  led  to  nothing,  and  that  politics  led  to  chaos,  one  had  turned  to 
the  law,  as  one's  scholars  turned  to  the  Law  School,  because  one  could 
see  no  other  path  to  a  profession. 

The  Law  had  proved  as  futile  as  politics  or  religion,  or  any  other 
single  thread  spun  by  the  human  spider ;  it  offered  no  more  continuity 
than  architecture  or  coinage,  and  no  more  force  of  its  own.  St.  Francis 
expressed  supreme  contempt  for  them  all,  and  solved  the  whole  problem 
by  rejecting  it  altogether.  Adams  returned  to  Paris  with  a  broken  and 
contrite  spirit,  prepared  to  admit  that  his  life  had  no  meaning,  and 
conscious  that  in  any  case  it  no  longer  mattered.  He  passed  a  summer 
of  solitude  contrasting  sadly  with  the  last  at  Surrenden ;  but  the  solitude 
did  what  the  society  did  not; — it  forced  and  drove  him  into  the  study  of 
his  ignorance  in  silence.  Here  at  last  he  entered  the  practice  of  his  final 
profession.  Hunted  by  ennui,  he  could  no  longer  escape,  and,  by  way  of 
a  summer  school,  he  began  a  methodical  survey,  —  a  triangulation,  —  of 
the  twelfth  century.  The  pursuit  had  a  singular  French  charm  which 
France  had  long  lost, — a  calmness,  lucidity,  simplicity  of  expression,  vigor 
of  action,  complexity  of  local  color,  that  made  Paris  flat.  In  the  long  sum 
mer  days  one  found  a  sort  of  saturated  green  pleasure  in  the  forests,  and 
gray  infinity  of  rest  in  the  little  twelfth-century  churches  that  lined  them, 
as  unassuming  as  their  own  mosses,  and  as  sure  of  their  purpose  as  their 
round  arches;  but  churches  were  many  and  summer  was  short,  so  that 
he  was  at  last  driven  back  to  the  quays  and  photographs.  For  weeks  he 
lived  in  silence. 

His  solitude  was  broken  in  November  by  the  chance  arrival  of  John 
La  Farge.  At  that  moment,  contact  with  La  Farge  had  a  new  value.  Of 
all  the  men  who  had  deeply  affected  their  friends  since  1850  John  La 
Farge  was  certainly  the  foremost,  and  for  Henry  Adams,  who  had  sat 
at  his  feet  since  1872,  the  question  how  much  he  owed  to  La  Farge 
could  be  answered  only  by  admitting  that  he  had  no  standard  to  measure 
it  by.  Of  all  his  friends  La  Farge  alone  owned  a  mind  complex  enough 
to  contrast  against  the  common-places  of  American  uniformity,  and  in 
the  process  had  vastly  perplexed  most  Americans  who  came  in  contact 
with  it.  The  American  mind, — the  Bostonian  as  well  as  the  southern  or 


INDIAN  SUMMER  323 

western, — likes  to  walk  straight  up  to  its  object,  and  assert  or  deny 
something  that  it  takes  for  a  fact ;  it  has  a  conventional  approach,  a 
conventional  analysis,  and  a  conventional  conclusion,  as  well  as  a  conven 
tional  expression,  all  the  time  loudly  asserting  its  unconveutionality. 
The  most  disconcerting  trait  of  John  La  Farge  was  his  reversal  of  the 
process.  His  approach  was  quiet  and  indirect ;  he  moved  round  an 
object,  and  never  separated  it  from  its  surroundings ;  he  prided  himself 
on  faithfulness  to  tradition  and  convention ;  he  was  never  abrupt  and 
abhorred  dispute.  His  manners  and  attitude  towards  the  universe  were 
the  same,  whether  tossing  in  the  middle  of  the  Pacific  Ocean  sketching 
the  trade-wind  from  a  whale-boat  in  the  blast  of  sea-sickness,  or  drinking 
the  cha-no-yu  in  the  formal  rites  of  Japan,  or  sipping  his  cocoa-nut 
cup  of  kava  in  the  ceremonial  of  Samoan  chiefs,  or  reflecting  under 
the  sacred  bo-tree  at  Anaradjpura. 

One  was  never  quite  sure  of  his  whole  meaning  until  too  late  to 
respond,  for  he  had  no  difficulty  in  carrying  different  shades  of  contra 
diction  in  his  mind.  As  he  said  of  his  friend  Okakura,  his  thought 
ran  as  a  stream  runs  through  grass,  hidden  perhaps  but  always  there; 
and  one  felt  often  uncertain  in  what  direction  it  flowed,  for  even  a 
contradiction  was  to  him  only  a  shade  of  difference,  a  complementary 
color,  about  which  no  intelligent  artist  would  dispute.  Constantly  he 
repulsed  argument : — "  Adams,  you  reason  too  much ! "  was  one  of  his 
standing  reproaches  even  in  the  mild  discussion  of  rice  and  mangoes 
in  the  warm  night  of  Tahiti  dinners.  He  should  have  blamed  Adams 
for  being  born  in  Boston.  The  mind  resorts  to  reason  for  want  of 
training,  and  Adams  had  never  met  a  perfectly  trained  mind. 

To  La  Farge,  eccentricity  meant  convention ;  a  mind  really  eccentric 
never  betrayed  it.  True  eccentricity  was  a  tone, — a  shade, — a  nuance, 
— and  the  finer  the  tone,  the  truer  the  eccentricity.  Of  course  all  artists 
hold  more  or  less  the  same  point  of  view  in  their  art,  but  few  carry 
it  into  daily  life,  and  often  the  contrast  is  excessive  between  their  art 
and  their  talk.  One  evening  Humphreys  Johnston,  who  was  devoted 
to  La  Farge,  asked  him  to  meet  Whistler  at  dinner.  La  Farge  was  ill, 
— more  ill  than  usual  even  for  him, — but  he  admired  and  liked  Whistler, 
and  insisted  on  going.  By  chance,  Adams  was  so  placed  as  to  overhear 
the  conversation  of  both,  and  had  no  choice  but  to  hear  that  of  Whistler, 


324  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

which  engrossed  the  table.  At  that  moment  the  Boer  war  was  raging, 
and,  as  everyone  knows,  on  that  subject  Whistler  raged  worse  than 
the  Boers.  For  two  hours  he  declaimed  against  England, — witty, 
declamatory,  extravagant,  bitter,  amusing  and  noisy ;  but  in  substance 
what  he  said  was  not  merely  common-place, — it  was  true!  That  is  to 
say,  his  hearers,  including  Adams  and,  as  far  as  he  knew,  La  Farge, 
agreed  with  it  all,  and  mostly  as  a  matter  of  course ;  yet  La  Farge  was 
silent,  and  this  difference  of  expression  was  a  difference  of  art.  Whistler 
in  his  art  carried  the  sense  of  nuance  and  tone  far  beyond  any  point 
reached  by  La  Farge,  or  even  attempted ;  but  in  talk  he  showed,  above 
or  below  his  color-instinct,  a  willingness  to  seem  eccentric  where  no  real 
eccentricity,  unless  perhaps  of  temper,  existed. 

This  vehemence,  which  Whistler  never  betrayed  in  his  painting,  La 
Farge  seemed  to  lavish  on  his  glass.  With  the  relative  value  of  La 
Farge's  glass  in  the  history  of  glass-decoration,  Adams  was  too  ignorant 
to  meddle,  and  as  a  rule  artists  were  if  possible  more  ignorant  than  he ; 
but  whatever  it  was,  it  led  him  back  to  the  twelfth  century  and  to 
Chartres  where  La  Farge  not  only  felt  at  home,  but  felt  a  sort  of  owner 
ship.  No  other  American  had  a  right  there,  unless  he  too  were  a 
member  of  the  Church  and  worked  in  glass.  Adams  himself  was  an 
interloper,  but  long  habit  led  La  Farge  to  resign  himself  to  Adams  as 
one  who  meant  well  though  deplorably  Bostonian ;  while  Adams,  though 
near  sixty  years  old  before  he  knew  anything  either  of  glass  or  of 
Chartres,  asked  no  better  than  to  learn,  and  only  La  Farge  could  help 
him,  for  he  knew  enough  at  least  to  see  that  La  Farge  alone  could  use 
glass  like  a  thirteenth-century  artist.  In  Europe  the  art  had  been  dead 
for  centuries,  and  modern  glass  was  pitiable.  Even  La  Farge  felt  the 
early  glass  rather  as  a  document  than  as  a  historical  emotion,  and  in 
hundreds  of  windows  at  Chartres  and  Bourges  and  Paris,  Adams  knew 
barely  one  or  two  that  were  meant  to  hold  their  own  against  a  color- 
scheme  so  strong  as  his.  In  conversation  La  Farge's  mind  was  opaline 
with  infinite  shades  and  refractions  of  light,  and  with  color  toned  down 
to  the  finest  gradations.  In  glass  it  was  insubordinate ;  it  was  renais 
sance  ;  it  asserted  his  personal  force  with  depth  and  vehemence  of  tone 
never  before  seen.  He  seemed  bent  on  crushing  rivalry. 

Even  the  gloom  of  a  Paris  December   at   the   Elysee  Palace   Hotel 


INDIAN  SUMMER  325 

was  somewhat  relieved  by  this  companionship,  and  education  made  a  step 
backwards  towards  Chartres,  but  La  Farge's  health  became  more  and  more 
alarming,  and  Adams  was  glad  to  get  him  safely  back  to  New  York, 
January  15,  1900,  while  he  himself  went  at  once  to  Washington  to  find 
out  what  had  become  of  Hay.  Nothing  good  could  be  hoped,  for  Hay's 
troubles  had  begun,  and  were  quite  as  great  as  he  had  foreseen.  Adams 
saw  as  little  encouragement  as  Hay  himself  did,  though  he  dared  not 
say  so.  He  doubted  Hay's  endurance,  the  President's  firmness  in  sup 
porting  him,  and  the  loyalty  of  his  party-friends ;  but  all  this  worry 
on  Hay's  account  fretted  him  not  nearly  so  much  as  the  Boer  war 
did  on  his  own.  Here  was  a  problem  in  his  political  education  that 
passed  all  experience  since  the  Treason  winter  of  1860-61  !  Much  to 
his  astonishment,  very  few  Americans  seemed  to  share  his  point  of  view ; 
their  hostility  to  England  seemed  mere  temper ;  but  to  Adams  the  war 
became  almost  a  personal  outrage.  He  had  been  taught  from  child 
hood,  even  in  England,  that  his  forbears  and  their  associates  in  1776, 
had  settled,  once  for  all,  the  liberties  of  the  British  free-colonies,  and 
he  very  strongly  objected  to  being  thrown  on  the  defensive  again,  and 
forced  to  sit  down,  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  after  John  Adams  had 
begun  the  task,  to  prove  by  appeal  to  law  and  fact,  that  George  Washing 
ton  was  not  a  felon,  whatever  might  be  the  case  with  George  III.  For 
reasons  still  more  personal,  he  declined  peremptorily  to  entertain  question 
of  the  felony  of  John  Adams.  He  felt  obliged  to  go  even  further, 
and  avow  the  opinion  that  if  at  any  time  England  should  take  towards 
Canada  the  position  she  took  towards  her  Boer  colonies,  the  United 
States  would  be  bound,  by  their  record,  to  interpose,  and  to  insist  on 
the  application  of  the  principles  of  1776.  To  him  the  attitude  of  Mr. 
Chamberlain  and  his  colleagues  seemed  exceedingly  un-American,  and 
terribly  embarrassing  to  Hay. 

Trained  early,  in  the  stress  of  civil  war,  to  hold  his  tongue,  and  to 
help  make  the  political  machine  run  somehow,  since  it  could  never  be 
made  to  run  well,  he  would  not  bother  Hay  with  theoretical  objections 
which  were  every  day  fretting  him  in  practical  forms.  Hay's  chance 
lay  in  patience  and  good  temper  till  the  luck  should  turn,  and  to  him  the 
only  object  was  time ;  but  as  political  education  the  point  seemed  vital  to 
Adams,  who  never  liked  shutting  his  eyes  or  denying  an  evident  fact. 


326  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

Practical  politics  consists  in  ignoring  facts,  but  education  and  politics 
are  two  different  and  often  contradictory  things.  In  this  case,  the  con 
tradiction  seemed  crude. 

With  Hay's  politics,  at  home  or  abroad,  Adams  had  nothing  whatever 
to  do.  Hay  belonged  to  the  New  York  school,  like  Abram  Hewitt, 
Evarts,  W.  C.  Whitney,  Samuel  J.  Tilden,  —  men  who  played  the  game 
for  ambition  or  amusement,  and  played  it,  as  a  rule,  much  better  than 
the  professionals,  but  whose  aims  were  considerably  larger  than  those  of 
the  usual  player,  and  who  felt  no  great  love  for  the  cheap  drudgery  of  the 
work.  In  return,  the  professionals  felt  no  great  love  for  them,  and  set 
them  aside  when  they  could.  Only  their  control  of  money  made  them 
inevitable,  and  even  this  did  not  always  carry  their  points.  The  story 
of  Abram  Hewitt  would  offer  one  type  of  this  statesman-series,  and  that 
of  Hay  another.  President  Cleveland  set  aside  the  one ;  President  Harrison 
set  aside  the  other.  "There  is  no  politics  in  it,"  was  his  comment  on 
Hay's  appointment  to  office.  Hay  held  a  different  opinion  and  turned 
to  McKinley  whose  judgment  of  men  was  finer  than  common  in  Presi 
dents.  Mr.  McKinley  brought  to  the  problem  of  American  government 
a  solution  which  lay  very  far  outside  of  Henry  Adams's  education,  but 
which  seemed  to  be  at  least  practical  and  American.  He  undertook 
to  pool  interests  in  a  general  trust  into  which  every  interest  should  be 
taken,  more  or  less  at  its  own  valuation,  and  whose  mass  should,  under 
his  management,  create  efficiency.  He  achieved  very  remarkable  results. 
How  much  they  cost  was  another  matter;  —  if  the  public  is  ever  driven 
to  its  last  resources  and  the  usual  remedies  of  chaos,  the  result  will 
probably  cost  more. 

Himself  a  marvellous  manager  of  men,  McKinley  found  several  man 
ipulators  to  help  him,  almost  as  remarkable  as  himself,  one  of  whom 
was  Hay ;  but  unfortunately  Hay's  strength  was  weakest  and  his  task 
hardest.  At  home,  interests  could  be  easily  combined  by  simply  paying 
their  price ;  but  abroad  whatever  helped  on  one  side,  hurt  him  on  another. 
Hay  thought  England  must  be  brought  first  into  the  combine ;  but  at 
that  time  both  Germany,  Russia  and  France  were  combining  against 
England,  and  the  Boer  war  helped  them.  For  the  moment  Hay  had  no 
ally,  abroad  or  at  home,  except  Pauncefote,  and  Adams  always  maintained 
that  Pauncefote  alone  pulled  him  through. 


INDIAN  SUMMER  327 

Yet  the  difficulty  abroad  was  far  less  troublesome  than  the  obstacles 
at  home.  The  Senate  had  grown  more  and  more  unmanageable,  even 
since  the  time  of  Andrew  Johnson,  and  this  was  less  the  fault  of  the 
Senate  than  of  the  system.  "A  treaty  of  peace,  in  any  normal  state  of 
things,"  said  Hay,  "  ought  to  be  ratified  with  unanimity  in  twenty-four 
hours.  They  wasted  six  weeks  in  wrangling  over  this  one,  and  ratified 
it  with  one  vote  to  spare.  We  have  five  or  six  matters  now  demanding 
settlement.  I  can  settle  them  all,  honorably  and  advantageously  to  our 
own  side ;  and  I  am  assured  by  leading  men  in  the  Senate  that  not 
one  of  these  treaties,  if  negotiated,  will  pass  the  Senate.  I  should  have 
a  majority  in  every  case,  but  a  malcontent  third  would  certainly  dish 
every  one  of  them.  To  such  monstrous  shape  has  the  original  mistake 
of  the  Constitution  grown  in  the  evolution...  of  our  politics.  You  must 
understand,  it  is  not  merely  my  solution  the  Senate  will  reject.  They 
will  reject,  for  instance,  any  Treaty,  whatever,  on  any  subject,  with 
England.  I  doubt  if  they  would  accept  any  Treaty  of  consequence 
with  Russia  or  Germany.  The  recalcitrant  third  would  be  differently 
composed,  but  it  would  be  on  hand.  So  that  the  real  duties  of  a 
Secretary  of  State  seem  to  be  three : — To  fight  claims  upon  us  by  other 
States ;  to  press  more  or  less  fraudulent  claims  of  our  own  citizens 
upon  other  countries ;  to  find  offices  for  the  friends  of  Senators  when 
there  are  none.  Is  it  worth  while — for  me — to  keep  up  this  useless 
labor?" 

To  Adams,  who,  like  Hay,  had  seen  a  dozen  acquaintances  struggling 
with  the  same  enemies,  the  question  had  scarcely  the  interest  of  a 
new  study.  He  had  said  all  he  had  to  say  about  it  in  a  dozen  or 
more  volumes  relating  to  the  politics  of  a  hundred  years  before.  To 
him,  the  spectacle  was  so  familiar  as  to  be  humorous.  The  intrigue 
was  too  open  to  be  interesting.  The  interference  of  the  German  and 
Russian  legations,  and  of  the  Clan-na-gael,  with  the  press  and  the 
Senate  was  innocently  undisguised.  The  charming  Russian  minister, 
Count  Cassini,  the  ideal  of  diplomatic  manners  and  training,  let  few 
days  pass  without  appealing  through  the  press  to  the  public  against 
the  government.  The  German  minister,  von  Holleben,  more  cautiously 
did  the  same  thing,  and  of  course  every  whisper  of  theirs  was  brought 
instantly  to  the  Department.  These  three  forces,  acting  with  the  regular 


328  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

opposition  and  the  natural  obstructionists,  could  always  stop  action  in 
the  Senate.  The  fathers  had  intended  to  neutralise  the  energy  of 
government  and  had  succeeded,  but  their  machine  was  never  meant  to 
do  the  work  of  a  20-million  h.  p.  society  in  the  twentieth  century, 
where  much  work  needed  to  be  quickly  and  efficiently  done.  The 
only  defence  of  the  system  was  that,  as  government  did  nothing  well, 
it  had  best  do  nothing ;  but  the  government,  in  truth,  did  perfectly 
well  all  it  was  given  to  do;  and  even  if  the  charge  were  true,  it 
applied  equally  to  human  society  altogether,  if  one  chose  to  treat  man 
kind  from  that  point  of  view.  As  a  matter  of  mechanics,  so  much 
work  must  be  done ;  bad  machinery  merely  added  to  friction. 

Always  unselfish,  generous,  easy,  patient  and  loyal,  Hay  had 
treated  the  world  as  something  to  be  taken  in  block  without  pulling 
it  to  pieces  to  get  rid  of  its  defects ;  he  liked  it  all ;  he  laughed  and 
accepted ;  he  had  never  known  unhappiness  and  would  have  gladly 
lived  his  entire  life  over  again  exactly  as  it  happened.  In  the  whole 
New  York  school,  one  met  a  similar  dash  of  humor  and  cynicism  more 
or  less  pronounced  but  seldom  bitter.  Yet  even  the  gayest  of  tempers 
succumbs  at  last  to  constant  friction.  The  old  friend  was  rapidly 
fading.  The  habit  remained,  but  the  easy  intimacy,  the  careless  gaiety, 
the  casual  humor,  the  equality  of  indifference  were  sinking  into  the 
routine  of  office ;  the  mind  lingered  in  the  Department ;  the  thought 
failed  to  react;  the  wit  and  humor  shrank  within  the  blank  walls  of 
politics,  and  the  irritations  multiplied.  To  a  head  of  bureau,  the  result 
seemed  ennobling. 

Although,  as  education,  this  branch  of  study  was  more  familiar  and 
older  than  the  twelfth  century,  the  task  of  bringing  the  two  periods  into 
a  common  relation  was  new.  Ignorance  required  that  these  political 
and  social  and  scientific  values  of  the  twelfth  and  twentieth  centuries 
should  be  correlated  in  some  relation  of  movement  that  could  be 
expressed  in  mathematics,  nor  did  one  care  in  the  least  that  all  the 
world  said  it  could  not  be  done,  or  that  one  knew  not  enough  mathe 
matics  even  to  figure  a  formula  beyond  the  school-boy  s  =  -^-.  If 
Kepler  and  Newton  could  take  liberties  with  the  sun  and  moon,  an 
obscure  person  in  a  remote  wilderness  like  La  Fayette  Square  could  take 
liberties  with  Congress,  and  venture  to  multiply  half  its  attraction  into 


INDIAN  SUMMER  329 

the  square  of  its  time.  He  had  only  to  find  a  value,  even  infinitesimal, 
for  its  attraction  at  any  given  time.  A  historical  formula  that  should 
satisfy  the  conditions  of  the  stellar  universe  weighed  heavily  on  his 
mind ;  but  a  trifling  matter  like  this  was  one  in  which  he  could  look 
for  no  help  from  anybody, — he  could  look  only  for  derision  at  best. 

All  his  associates  in  history  condemned  such  an  attempt  as  futile 
and  almost  immoral, — certainly  hostile  to  sound  historical  system.  Adams 
tried  it  only  because  of  its  hostility  to  all  that  he  had  taught  for 
history,  since  he  started  afresh  from  the  new  point  that,  whatever  was 
right,  all  he  had  ever  taught  was  wrong.  He  had  pursued  ignorance 
thus  far  with  success,  and  had  swept  his  mind  clear  of  knowledge.  In 
beginning  again,  from  the  starting  point  of  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  he  looked 
about  him  in  vain  for  a  teacher.  Few  men  in  Washington  cared  to 
overstep  the  school-conventions,  and  the  most  distinguished  of  them, 
Simon  Newcomb,  was  too  sound  a  mathematician  to  treat  such  a  scheme 
seriously.  The  greatest  of  Americans,  judged  by  his  rank  in  science, 
Wolcott  Gibbs,  never  came  to  Washington,  and  Adams  never  enjoyed  a 
chance  to  meet  him.  After  Gibbs,  one  of  the  most  distinguished  was 
Langley  of  the  Smithsonian,  who  was  more  accessible,  to  whom  Adams 
had  been  much  in  the  habit  of  turning  whenever  he  wanted  an  outlet  for 
his  vast  reservoirs  of  ignorance.  Langley  listened  with  outward  patience 
to  his  disputatious  questionings;  but  he  too  nourished  a  scientific  passion 
for  doubt,  and  sentimental  attachment  for  its  avowal.  He  had  the 
physicist's  heinous  fault  of  professing  to  know  nothing  between  flashes  of 
intense  perception.  Like  so  many  other  great  observers,  Langley  was 
not  a  mathematician,  and  like  most  physicists,  he  believed  in  physics. 
Kigidly  denying  himself  the  amusement  of  philosophy,  which  consists 
chiefly  in  suggesting  unintelligible  answers  to  insoluble  problems,  he  still 
knew  the  problems,  and  liked  to  wander  past  them  in  a  courteous  temper, 
even  bowing  to  them  distantly  as  though  recognising  their  existence 
though  doubting  their  respectability.  He  generously  let  others  doubt 
what  he  felt  obliged  to  affirm ;  and  early  put  into  Adams's  hands  the 
Concepts  of  Modern  Science ;  a  volume  by  Judge  Stallo,  which  had  been 
treated  for  a  dozen  years  by  the  schools,  much  as  Wolcott  Gibbs  himself 
was  treated,  with  a  conspiracy  of  silence  such  as  inevitably  meets  every 
revolutionary  work  that  upsets  the  stock  and  machinery  of  instruction. 


330  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

Adams  read  and  failed  to  understand ;  then  he  asked  questions  and  failed 
to  get  answers. 

Probably  this  was  education.  Perhaps  it  was  the  only  scientific 
education  open  to  a  student  sixty-odd  years  old,  who  asked  to  be  as 
ignorant  as  an  astronomer.  For  him  the  details  of  science  meant  nothing: 
he  wanted  to  know  its  mass.  Solar  heat  was  not  enough,  or  was  too 
much.  Kinetic  atoms  led  only  to  motion ;  never  to  direction  or  progress. 
History  had  no  use  for  multiplicity ;  it  needed  unity ;  it  could  study 
only  motion,  direction,  attraction,  relation.  Everything  must  be  made  to 
move  together ;  one  must  seek  new  worlds  to  measure ;  and  so,  like 
Easselas,  Adams  set  out  once  more,  and  found  himself  on  May  12 
settled  in  rooms  at  the  very  door  of  the  Trocadero. 


CHAPTER    XXV 

1900 

Until  the  Great  Exposition  of  1900  closed  its  doors  in  November, 
Adams  haunted  it,  aching  to  absorb  knowledge,  and  helpless  to  find  it. 
He  would  have  liked  to  know  how  much  of  it  could  have  been  grasped 
by  the  best  informed  man  in  the  world.  While  he  was  thus  meditating 
chaos,  Langley  came  by,  and  showed  it  to  him.  At  Langley's  behest, 
the  Exhibition  dropped  its  superfluous  rags  and  stripped  itself  to  the 
skin,  for  Langley  knew  what  to  study,  and  why,  and  how;  while  Adams 
might  as  well  have  stood  outside  in  the  night,  staring  at  the  Milky  Way. 
Yet  Langley  said  nothing  new,  and  taught  nothing  that  one  might  not 
have  learned  from  Lord  Bacon,  three  hundred  years  before;  but  though 
one  should  have  known  the  Advancement  of  Science  as  well  as  one  knew 
the  Comedy  of  Errors,  the  literary  knowledge  counted  for  nothing  until 
some  teacher  should  show  how  to  apply  it.  Bacon  took  a  vast  deal  of 
trouble  in  teaching  King  James  I.  and  his  subjects,  American  or  other, 
towards  the  year  1620,  that  true  science  was  the  development  or  economy 
of  forces;  yet  an  elderly  American  in  1900  knew  neither  the  formula 
nor  the  forces ;  or  even  so  much  as  to  say  to  himself  that  his  historical 
business  in  the  Exposition  concerned  only  the  economies  or  developments 
of  force  since  1893,  when  he  began  the  study  at  Chicago. 

Nothing  in  education  is  so  astonishing  as  the  amount  of  ignorance 
it  accumulates  in  the  form  of  inert  facts.  Adams  had  looked  at  most 
of  the  accumulations  of  art  in  the  storehouses  called  Art  Museums ;  yet 
he  did  not  know  how  to  look  at  the  art-exhibits  of  1900.  He  had 
studied  Karl  Marx  and  his  doctrines  of  history  with  profound  attention, 
yet  he  could  not  apply  them  at  Paris.  Langley,  with  the  ease  of  a 

331 


332  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENKY  ADAMS 

great  master  of  experiment,  threw  out  of  the  field  every  exhibit  that  did 
not  reveal  a  new  application  of  force,  and  naturally  threw  out,  to  begin 
with,  almost  the  whole  art-exhibit.  Equally,  he  ignored  almost  the 
whole  industrial  exhibit.  He  led  his  pupil  directly  to  the  forces.  His 
chief  interest  was  in  new  motors  to  make  his  air-ship  feasible,  and  he 
taught  Adams  the  astonishing  complexities  of  the  new  Daimler  motor, 
and  of  the  automobile,  which,  since  1893,  had  become  a  night-mare 
at  a  hundred  kilometres  an  hour,  almost  as  destructive  as  the  electric 
tram  which  was  only  ten  years  older ;  and  threatening  to  become  as  terrible 
as  the  locomotive  steam-engine  itself,  which  was  almost  exactly  Adams's 
own  age. 

Then  he  showed  his  scholar  the  great  hall  of  dynamos,  and  ex 
plained  how  little  he  knew  about  electricity  or  force  of  any  kind,  even 
of  his  own  special  sun,  which  spouted  heat  in  inconceivable  volume,  but 
which,  as  far  as  he  knew,  might  spout  less  or  more,  at  any  time,  for 
all  the  certainty  he  felt  in  it.  To  him,  the  dynamo  itself  was  but  an 
ingenious  channel  for  conveying  somewhere  the  heat  latent  in  a  few  tons 
of  poor  coal  hidden  in  a  dirty  engine-house  carefully  kept  out  of  sight ; 
but  to  Adams  the  dynamo  became  a  symbol  of  infinity.  As  he  grew 
accustomed  to  the  great  gallery  of  machines,  he  began  to  feel  the  forty- 
foot  dynamos  as  a  moral  force,  much  as  the  early  Christians  felt  the 
Cross.  The  planet  itself  seemed  less  impressive,  in  its  old-fashioned, 
deliberate,  annual  or  daily  revolution,  than  this  huge  wheel,  revolving 
within  arm's-length  at  some  vertiginous  speed,  and  barely  murmuring, 
—  scarcely  humming  an  audible  warning  to  stand  a  hair's-breadth 
further  for  respect  of  power,  —  while  it  would  not  wake  the  baby  lying 
close  against  its  frame.  Before  the  end,  one  began  to  pray  to  it; 
inherited  instinct  taught  the  natural  expression  of  man  before  silent  and 
infinite  force.  Among  the  thousand  symbols  of  ultimate  energy,  the 
dynamo  was  not  so  human  as  some,  but  it  was  the  most  expressive. 

Yet  the  dynamo,  next  to  the  steam-engine,  was  the  most  familiar 
of  exhibits.  For  Adams's  objects  its  value  lay  chiefly  in  its  occult 
mechanism.  Between  the  dynamo  in  the  gallery  of  machines  and  the 
engine-house  outside,  the  break  of  continuity  amounted  to  abysmal  frac 
ture  for  a  historian's  objects.  No  more  relation  could  he  discover  between 
the  steam  and  the  electric  current  than  between  the  Cross  and  the 


THE   DYNAMO   AND  THE  VIRGIN  333 

cathedral.  The  forces  were  interchangeable  if  not  reversible,  but  he  could 
see  only  an  absolute  fiat  in  electricity  as  in  faith.  Langley  could  not 
help  him.  Indeed,  Langley  seemed  to  be  worried  by  the  same  trouble, 
for  he  constantly  repeated  that  the  new  forces  were  anarchical,  and 
especially  that  he  was  not  responsible  for  the  new  rays,  that  were  little 
short  of  parricidal  in  their  wicked  spirit  towards  science.  His  own 
rays,  with  which  he  had  doubled  the  solar  spectrum,  were  altogether 
harmless  and  beneficent ;  but  Radium  denied  its  God, — or,  what  was  to 
Langley  the  same  thing,  denied  the  truths  of  his  Science.  The  force 
was  wholly  new. 

A  historian  who  asked  only  to  learn  enough  to  be  as  futile  as  Langley 
or  Kelvin,  made  rapid  progress  under  this  teaching,  and  mixed  himself 
up  in  the  tangle  of  ideas  until  he  achieved  a  sort  of  Paradise  of  ignorance 
vastly  consoling  to  his  fatigued  senses.  He  wrapped  himself  in  vibra 
tions  and  rays  which  were  new,  and  he  would  have  hugged  Marconi 
and  Branly  had  he  met  them,  as  he  hugged  the  dynamo ;  while  he  lost 
his  arithmetic  in  trying  to  figure  out  the  equation  between  the  discoveries 
and  the  economies  of  force.  The  economies,  like  the  discoveries,  were 
absolute,  supersensual,  occult ;  incapable  of  expression  in  horse-power. 
What  mathematical  equivalent  could  he  suggest  as  the  value  of  a  Branly 
coherer?  Frozen  air,  or  the  electric  furnace  had  some  scale  of  measure 
ment,  no  doubt,  if  somebody  could  invent  a  thermometer  adequate  to 
the  purpose ;  but  X-rays  had  played  no  part  whatever  in  man's  con 
sciousness,  and  the  atom  itself  had  figured  only  as  a  fiction  of  thought. 
In  these  seven  years  man  had  translated  himself  into  a  new  universe 
which  had  no  common  scale  of  measurement  with  the  old.  He  had 
entered  a  supersensual  world,  in  which  he  could  measure  nothing  except 
by  chance  collisions  of  movements  imperceptible  to  his  senses,  perhaps 
even  imperceptible  to  his  instruments,  but  perceptible  to  each  other, 
and  so  to  some  known  ray  at  the  end  of  the  scale.  Langley  seemed 
prepared  for  anything,  even  for  an  indeterminable  number  of  universes 
interfused,  —  physics  stark  mad  in  metaphysics. 

Historians  undertake  to  arrange  sequences, — called  stories,  or  histories, 
— assuming  in  silence  a  relation  of  cause  and  effect.  These  assumptions, 
hidden  in  the  depths  of  dusty  libraries,  have  been  astounding,  but  commonly 
unconscious  and  childlike ;  so  much  so,  that  if  any  captious  critic  were 


334  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

to  drag  them  to  light,  historians  would  probably  reply,  with  one  voice, 
that  they  had  never  supposed  themselves  required  to  know  what  they 
were  talking  about.  Adams,  for  one,  had  toiled  in  vain  to  find  out  what 
he  meant.  He  had  even  published  a  dozen  volumes  of  American  history 
for  no  other  purpose  than  to  satisfy  himself  whether,  by  the  severest 
process  of  stating,  with  the  least  possible  comment,  such  facts  as  seemed 
sure,  in  such  order  as  seemed  rigorously  consequent,  he  could  fix  for  a 
familiar  moment  a  necessary  sequence  of  human  movement.  The  result 
had  satisfied  him  as  little  as  at  Harvard  College.  Where  he  saw  sequence, 
other  men  saw  something  quite  different,  and  no  one  saw  the  same  unit 
of  measure.  He  cared  little  about  his  experiments  and  less  about  his 
statesmen,  who  seemed  to  him  quite  as  ignorant  as  himself  and,  as  a  rule, 
no  more  honest ;  but  he  insisted  on  a  relation  of  sequence,  and  if  he  could 
not  reach  it  by  one  method,  he  would  try  as  many  methods  as  science 
knew.  Satisfied  that  the  sequence  of  men  led  to  nothing  and  that  the 
sequence  of  their  society  could  lead  no  further,  while  the  mere  sequence 
of  time  was  artificial,  and  the  sequence  of  thought  was  chaos,  he  turned 
at  last  to  the  sequence  of  force ;  and  thus  it  happened  that,  after  ten 
years'  pursuit,  he  found  himself  lying  in  the  Gallery  of  Machines  at  the 
Great  Exposition  of  1900,  with  his  historical  neck  broken  by  the  sudden 
irruption  of  force  totally  new. 

Since  no  one  else  showed  much  concern,  an  elderly  person  without 
other  cares,  had  no  need  to  betray  alarm.  The  year  1900  was  not  the 
first  to  upset  schoolmasters.  Copernicus  and  Galileo  had  broken  many 
professorial  necks  about  1600 ;  Columbus  had  stood  the  world  on  its  head 
towards  1500 ;  but  the  nearest  approach  to  the  revolution  of  1900  was 
that  of  310,  when  Constantine  set  up  the  Cross.  The  rays  that  Langley 
disowned,  as  well  as  those  which  he  fathered,  were  occult,  supersensual, 
irrational ;  they  were  a  revelation  of  mysterious  energy  like  that  of  the 
Cross ;  they  were  what,  in  terms  of  mediaeval  science,  were  called  imme 
diate  modes  of  the  divine  substance. 

The  historian  was  thus  reduced  to  his  last  resources.  Clearly  if 
he  was  bound  to  reduce  all  these  forces  to  a  common  value,  this  common 
value  could  have  no  measure  but  that  of  their  attraction  on  his  own 
mind.  He  must  treat  them  as  they  had  been  felt ;  as  convertible, 
reversible,  interchangeable  attractions  on  thought.  He  made  up  his  mind 
to  venture  it ;  he  would  risk  translating  rays  into  faith.  Such  a  reversible 


THE  DYNAMO  AND  THE  VIRGIN  335 

process  would  vastly  amuse  a  chemist,  but  the  chemist,  could  not  deny 
that  he.  or  some  of  his  fellow  physicists,  could  feel  the  force  of  both. 
When  Adams  was  a  boy  in  Boston,  the  best  chemist  in  the  place  had 
probably  never  heard  of  Venus  except  by  way  of  scandal,  or  of  the 
Virgin  except  as  idolatry ;  neither  had  he  heard  of  dynamos  or  auto 
mobiles  or  radium  ;  yet  his  mind  was  ready  to  feel  the  force  of  all,  though 
the  rays  were  unborn  and  the  women  were  dead. 

Here  opened  another  totally  new  education,  which  promised  to  be 
by  far  the  most  hazardous  of  all.  The  knife-edge  along  which  he  must 
crawl,  like  Sir  Lancelot  in  the  twelfth  century,  divided  two  kingdoms  of 
force  which  had  nothing  in  common  but  attraction.  They  were  as 
different  as  a  magnet  is  from  gravitation,  supposing  one  knew  what  a 
magnet  was,  or  gravitation,  or  love.  The  force  of  the  Virgin  was  still 
felt  at  Lourdes,  and  seemed  to  be  as  potent  as  X-rays;  but  in  America 
neither  Venus  nor  Virgin  ever  had  value  as  force; — at  most  as  sentiment. 
No  American  had  ever  been  truly  afraid  of  either. 

This  problem  in  dynamics  gravely  perplexed  an  American  historian. 
The  Woman  had  once  been  supreme;  in  France  she  still  seemed  potent, 
not  merely  as  a  sentiment  but  as  a  force;  why  was  she  unknown  in 
America?  for  evidently  America  was  ashamed  of  her,  and  she  was 
ashamed  of  herself,  otherwise  they  would  not  have  strewn  fig-leaves  so 
profusely  all  over  her.  When  she  was  a  true  force,  she  was  ignorant  of 
fig-leaves,  but  the  monthly-magazine-made  American  female  had  not  a 
feature  that  would  have  been  recognised  by  Adam.  The  trait  was 
notorious,  and  often  humorous,  but  anyone  brought  up  among  Puritans 
knew  that  sex  was  sin.  In  any  previous  age,  sex  was  strength.  Neither 
art  nor  beauty  was  needed.  Everyone,  even  among  Puritans,  knew  that 
neither  Diana  of  the  Ephesians  nor  any  of  the  oriental  Goddesses  was 
worshipped  for  her  beauty.  She  was  Goddess  because  of  her  force ;  she 
was  the  animated  dynamo;  she  was  reproduction — the  greatest  and  most 
mysterious  of  all  energies;  all  she  needed  was  to  be  fecund.  Singularly 
enough,  not  one  of  Adams's  many  schools  of  education  had  ever  drawn 
his  attention  to  the  opening  lines  of  Lucretius,  though  they  were  perhaps 
the  finest  in  all  Latin  literature,  where  the  poet  invoked  Venus  exactly 
as  Dante  invoked  the  Virgin : 

'  Quae   quoniam   rerum   naturara   sola  gubernas.' 


336  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

The  Venus  of  Epicurean  philosophy  survived  in  the  Virgin  of  the 
Schools :  — 

'  Donna,    sei   tanto   grande,    e   tanto  vali, 
Che   qual  vuol  grazia,    e   a   te  non   ricorre, 
Sua   disianza   vuol   volar   senz'    all.' 

All  this  was  to  American  thought  as  though  it  had  never  existed.  The 
true  American  knew  something  of  the  facts,  but  nothing  of  the  feelings; 
he  read  the  letter  but  he  never  felt  the  law.  Before  this  historical 
chasm,  a  mind  like  that  of  Adams  felt  itself  helpless;  he  turned  from 
the  Virgin  to  the  Dynamo  as  though  he  were  a  Branly  coherer.  On 
one  side,  at  the  Louvre  and  at  Chartres,  as  he  knew  by  the  record  of 
work  actually  done  and  still  before  his  eyes,  was  the  highest  energy  ever 
known  to  man,  the  creator  of  four-fifths  of  his  noblest  art,  exercising 
vastly  more  attraction  over  the  human  mind  than  all  the  steam-engines 
and  dynamos  ever  dreamed  of;  and  yet  this  energy  was  unknown  to  the 
American  mind.  An  American  Virgin  would  never  dare  command;  an 
American  Venus  would  never  dare  exist. 

The  question,  which  to  any  plain  American  of  the  nineteenth  century 
seemed  as  remote  as  it  did  to  Adams,  drew  him  almost  violently  to 
study,  once  it  was  posed ;  and  on  this  point  Langleys  were  as  useless 
as  though  they  were  Herbert  Spencers  or  dynamos.  The  idea  survived 
only  as  art.  There  one  turned  as  naturally  as  though  the  artist  were 
himself  a  woman.  Adams  began  to  ponder,  asking  himself  whether  he 
knew  of  any  American  artist  who  had  ever  insisted  on  the  power  of  sex, 
as  every  classic  had  always  done ;  but  he  could  think  only  of  Walt 
Whitman ;  Bret  Harte,  as  far  as  the  magazines  would  let  him  venture ; 
and  one  or  two  painters,  for  the  flesh-tones.  All  the  rest  had  used  sex 
for  sentiment,  never  for  force ;  to  them,  Eve  was  a  tender  flower,  and 
Herodias  an  unfeminine  horror.  American  art,  like  the  American 
language  and  American  education  was  as  far  as  possible  sexless.  Society 
regarded  this  victory  over  sex  as  its  greatest  triumph,  and  the  historian 
readily  admitted  it,  since  the  moral  issue,  for  the  moment,  did  not 
concern  one  who  was  studying  the  relations  of  unmoral  force.  He  cared 
nothing  for  the  sex  of  the  dynamo  until  he  could  measure  its  energy. 

Vaguely  seeking  a  clue,  he  wandered  through  the   art-exhibit,  and, 


THE  DYNAMO  AND  THE  VIRGIN  337 

in  his  stroll,  stopped  almost  every  day  before  St.  Gaudens'  General 
Sherman,  which  had  been  given  the  central  post  of  honor.  St.  Gaudens 
himself  was  in  Paris,  putting  on  the  work  his  usual  interminable  last 
touches,  and  listening  to  the  usual  contradictory  suggestions  of  brother 
sculptors.  Of  all  the  American  artists  who  gave  to  American  art  what 
ever  life  it  breathed  in  the  seventies,  St.  Gaudens  was  perhaps  the  most 
sympathetic,  but  certainly  the  most  inarticulate.  General  Grant  or  Don 
Cameron  had  scarcely  less  instinct  of  rhetoric  than  he.  All  the  others, 
— the  Hunts,  Richardson,  John  La  Farge,  Stanford  White, — were  exuber 
ant  ;  only  St.  Gaudens  could  never  discuss  or  dilate  on  an  emotion,  or 
suggest  artistic  arguments  for  giving  to  his  work  the  forms  that  he  felt. 
He  never  laid  down  the  law,  or  affected  the  despot,  or  become  brutalised 
like  Whistler  by  the  brutalities  of  his  world.  He  required  no  incense ;  he 
was  no  egoist ;  his  simplicity  of  thought  was  excessive ;  he  could  not 
imitate,  or  give  any  form  but  his  own  to  the  creations  of  his  hand.  No 
one  felt  more  strongly  than  he  the  strength  of  other  men,  but  the 
idea  that  they  could  affect  him  never  stirred  an  image  in  his  mind. 

This  summer  his  health  was  poor  and  his  spirits  were  low.  For 
such  a  temper,  Adams  was  not  the  best  companion,  since  his  own  gaiety 
was  not  folle ;  but  he  risked  going  now  and  then  to  the  studio  on 
Mont  Parnasse  to  draw  him  out  for  a  stroll  in  the  Bois  de  Boulogne,  or 
dinner  as  pleased  his  moods,  and  in  return  St.  Gaudens  sometimes  let 
Adams  go  about  in  his  company. 

Once  St.  Gaudens  took  him  down  to  Amiens,  with  a  party  of  French 
men,  to  see  the  Cathedral.  Not  until  they  found  themselves  actually 
studying  the  sculpture  of  the  western  portal,  did  it  dawn  on  Adams's 
mind  that,  for  his  purposes,  St.  Gaudens  on  that  spot  had  more  interest 
to  him  than  the  cathedral  itself.  Great  men  before  great  monuments 
express  great  truths,  provided  they  are  not  taken  too  solemnly.  Adams 
never  tired  of  quoting  the  supreme  phrase  of  his  idol  Gibbon,  before  the 
Gothic  Cathedrals : — "  I  darted  a  contemptuous  look  on  the  stately 
monuments  of  superstition."  Even  in  the  footnotes  of  his  history, 
Gibbon  had  never  inserted  a  bit  of  humor  more  human  than  this,  and 
one  would  have  paid  largely  for  a  photograph  of  the  fat  little  historian, 
on  the  background  of  Notre  Dame  of  Amiens,  trying  to  persuade  his 
readers — perhaps  himself, — that  he  was  darting  a  contemptuous  look  on 
22 


338  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENKY  ADAMS 

the  stately  monument,  for  which  he  felt  in  fact  the  respect  which  every 
man  of  his  vast  study  and  active  mind  always  feels  before  objects  worthy 
of  it;  but  besides  the  humor,  one  felt  also  the  relation.  Gibbon  ignored 
the  Virgin,  because  in  1789,  religious  monuments  were  out  of  fashion. 
In  1900  his  remark  sounded  fresh  and  simple  as  the  green  fields  to 
ears  that  had  heard  a  hundred  years  of  other  remarks,  mostly  no  more 
fresh  and  certainly  less  simple.  Without  malice,  one  might  find  it  more 
instructive  than  a  whole  lecture  of  Ruskin.  One  sees  what  one  brings, 
and  at  that  moment  Gibbon  brought  the  French  Revolution.  Ruskin 
brought  reaction  against  the  Revolution.  St.  Gaudens  had  passed  beyond 
all.  He  liked  the  stately  monuments  much  more  than  he  liked  Gibbon 
or  Ruskin ;  he  loved  their  dignity ;  their  unity ;  their  scale ;  their  lines ; 
their  lights  and  shadows ;  their  decorative  sculpture ;  but  he  was  even 
less  conscious  than  they  of  the  force  that  created  it  all, — the  Virgin,  the 
Woman, — by  whose  genius  "  the  stately  monuments  of  superstition " 
were  built,  through  which  she  was  expressed.  He  would  have  seen 
more  meaning  in  Isis  with  the  cow's  horns,  at  Edfoo,  who  expressed  the 
same  thought.  The  art  remained,  but  the  energy  was  lost  even  upon 
the  artist. 

Yet  in  mind  and  person  St.  Gaudens  was  a  survival  of  the  1500 ; 
he  bore  the  stamp  of  the  renaissance,  and  should  have  carried  an 
image  of  the  Virgin  round  his  neck,  or  stuck  in  his  hat,  like 
Louis  XI.  In  mere  time  he  was.  a  lost  soul  that  had  strayed  by 
chance  into  the  twentieth  century,  and  forgotten  where  it  came  from. 
He  writhed  and  cursed  at  his  ignorance,  much  as  Adams  did  at  his  own, 
but  in  the  opposite  sense.  St.  Gaudens  was  a  child  of  Benvenuto 
Cellini,  smothered  in  an  American  cradle.  Adams  was  a  quintessence 
of  Boston,  devoured  by  curiosity  to  think  like  Benvenuto.  St.  Gaudens's 
art  was  starved  from  birth,  and  Adams's  instinct  was  blighted  from 
babyhood.  Each  had  but  half  of  a  nature,  and  when  they  came 
together  before  the  Virgin  of  Amiens  they  ought  both  to  have  felt  in 
her  the  force  that  made  them  one ;  but  it  was  not  so.  To  Adams  she 
became  more  than  ever  a  channel  of  force ;  to  St.  Gaudens  she  remained 
as  before  a  channel  of  taste. 

For  a  symbol  of  power,  St.  Gaudens  instinctively  preferred  the 
horse,  as  was  plain  in  his  horse  and  Victory  of  the  Sherman  monument. 


THE  DYNAMO  AND  THE  VIRGIN  339 

Doubtless  Sherman  also  felt  it  so.  The  attitude  was  so  American  that, 
for  at  least  forty  years,  Adams  had  never  realised  that  any  other  could 
be  in  sound  taste.  How  many  years  had  he  taken  to  admit  a  notion 
of  what  Michael  Angelo  and  Kubens  were  driving  at?  He  could  not 
say ;  but  he  knew  that  only  since  1895  had  he  begun  to  feel  the  Virgin 
or  Venus  as  force,  and  not  everywhere  even  so.  At  Chartres — perhaps 
at  Lourdes, — possibly  at  Cnidos  if  one  could  still  find  there  the  divinely 
naked  Aphrodite  of  Praxiteles, — but  otherwise  one  must  look  for  force  to 
the  Goddesses  of  Indian  mythology.  The  idea  died  out  long  ago  in  the 
German  and  English  stock.  St.  Gaudens  at  Amiens  was  hardly  less 
sensitive  to  the  force  of  the  female  energy  than  Matthew  Arnold  at  the 
Grande  Chartreuse.  Neither  of  them  felt  Goddesses  as  power, — only  as 
reflected  emotion,  human  expression,  beauty,  purity,  taste,  scarcely  even 
as  sympathy.  They  felt  a  railway-train  as  power;  yet  they,  and  all  other 
artists  constantly  complained  that  the  power  embodied  in  a  railway-train 
could  never  be  embodied  in  art.  All  the  steam  in  the  world  could  not, 
like  the  Virgin,  build  Chartres. 

Yet  in  mechanics,  whatever  the  mechanicians  might  think,  both 
energies  acted  as  interchangeable  forces  on  man,  and  by  action  on  man  all 
known  force  may  be  measured.  Indeed,  few  men  of  science  measured  force 
in  any  other  way.  After  once  admitting  that  a  straight  line  was  the  shortest 
distance  between  two  points,  no  serious  mathematician  cared  to  deny 
anything  that  suited  his  convenience,  and  rejected  no  symbol,  unproved 
or  unproveable,  that  helped  him  to  accomplish  work.  The  symbol  was 
force,  as  a  compass-needle  or  a  triangle  was  force,  as  the  mechanist  might 
prove  by  losing  it,  and  nothing  could  be  gained  by  ignoring  their  value. 
Symbol  or  energy,  the  Virgin  had  acted  as  the  greatest  force  the  western 
world  ever  felt,  and  had  drawn  man's  activities  to  herself  more  strongly 
than  any  other  power,  natural  or  supernatural,  had  ever  done;  the 
historian's  business. was  to  follow  the  track  of  the  energy;  to  find  where 
it  came  from  and  where  it  went  to;  its  complex  source  and  shifting 
channels;  its  values,  equivalents,  conversions.  It  could  scarcely  be  more 
complex  than  radium;  it  could  hardly  be  deflected,  diverted,  polarised, 
absorbed  more  perplexingly  than  other  radiant  matter.  Adams  knew 
nothing  about  any  of  them,  but  as  a  mathematical  problem  of  influence 
on  human  progress,  though  all  were  occult,  all  reacted  on  his  mind,  and 
he  rather  inclined  to  think  the  Virgin  easiest  to  handle. 


340  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

The  pursuit  turned  out  to  be  long  and  tortuous,  leading  at  last 
into  the  vast  forests  of  scholastic  science.  From  Zeno  to  Descartes,  hand 
in  hand  with  Thomas  Aquinas,  Montaigne  and  Pascal,  one  stumbled  as 
stupidly  as  though  one  were  still  a  German  student  of  1860.  Only 
with  the  instinct  of  despair  could  one  force  oneself  into  this  old  thicket 
of  ignorance  after  having  been  repulsed  at  a  score  of  entrances  more 
promising  and  more  popular.  Thus  far,  no  path  had  led  anywhere, 
unless  perhaps  to  an  exceedingly  modest  living.  Forty-five  years  of  study 
had  proved  to  be  quite  futile  for  the  pursuit  of  power ;  one  controlled 
no  more  force  in  1900  than  in  1850,  although  the  amount  of  force 
controlled  by  society  had  enormously  increased.  The  secret  of  educa 
tion  still  hid  itself  somewhere  behind  ignorance,  and  one  fumbled  over  it 
as  feebly  as  ever.  In  such  labyrinths,  the  staff  is  a  force  almost  more 
necessary  than  the  legs ;  the  pen  becomes  a  sort  of  blind-man's  dog, 
to  keep  him  from  falling  into  the  gutters.  The  pen  works  for  itself, 
and  acts  like  a  hand,  modelling  the  plastic  material  over  and  over 
again  to  the  form  that  suits  it  best.  The  form  is  never  arbitrary,  but 
is  a  sort  of  growth  like  crystallization,  as  any  artist  knows  too  well ; 
for  often  the  pencil  or  pen  runs  into  side-paths  and  shapelessness,  loses 
its  relations,  stops  or  is  bogged.  Then  it  has  to  return  on  its  trail,  and 
recover,  if  it  can,  its  line  of  force.  The  result  of  a  year's  work  depends 
more  on  what  is  struck  out  than  on  what  is  left  in  ;  on  the  sequence 
of  the  main  lines  of  thought,  than  on  their  play  or  variety.  Compelled 
once  more  to  lean  heavily  on  this  support,  Adams  covered  more  thousands 
of  pages  with  figures  as  formal  as  though  they  were  algebra,  laboriously 
striking  out,  altering,  burning,  experimenting,  until  the  year  had  expired, 
the  Exposition  had  long  been  closed,  and  winter  drawing  to  its  end,  before 
he  sailed  from  Cherburg,  on  January  19,  1901,  for  home. 


CHAPTER    XXVI 

1901 

While  the  world  that  thought  itself  frivolous,  and  submitted  meekly 
to  hearing  itself  decried  as  vain,  fluttered  through  the  Paris  Exposition, 
jogging  the  futilities  of  St.  Gaudens,  Rodin  and  Besnard,  the  world 
that  thought  itself  serious,  and  showed  other  infallible  marks  of  coming 
mental  paroxysm,  was  engaged  in  weird  doings  at  Peking  and  elsewhere 
such  as  startled  even  itself.  Of  all  branches  of  education,  the  science 
of  guaging  people  and  events  by  their  relative  importance  defies  study 
most  insolently.  For  three  or  four  generations,  society  has  united  in 
withering  with  contempt  and  opprobrium  the  shameless  futility  of 
Madame  de  Pompadour  and  Madame  du  Barry;  yet,  if  one  bid  at  an 
auction  for  some  object  that  had  been  approved  by  the  taste  of  either 
lady,  one  quickly  found  that  it  were  better  to  buy  half  a  dozen 
Napoleons  or  Frederics,  or  Maria  Theresias,  or  all  the  philosophy  and 
science  of  their  time,  than  to  bid  for  a  cane-bottomed  chair  that 
either  of  these  two  ladies  had  adorned.  The  same  thing  might  be  said 
in  a  different  sense,  of  Voltaire;  while,  as  everyone  knows,  the  money- 
value  of  any  hand-stroke  of  Watteau  or  Hogarth,  Nattier  or  Sir  Joshua, 
is  out  of  all  proportion  to  the  importance  of  the  men.  Society  seemed 
to  delight  in  talking  with  solemn  conviction  about  serious  values,  and 
in  paying  fantastic  prices  for  nothing  but  the  most  futile.  The  drama 
acted  at  Peking,  in  the  summer  of  1900,  was  in  the  eyes  of  a  student, 
the  most  serious  that  could  be  offered  for  his  study,  since  it  brought 
him  suddenly  to  the  inevitable  struggle  for  the  control  of  China,  which, 
in  his  view,  must  decide  the  control  of  the  world ;  yet,  as  a  money- 
value,  the  fall  of  China  was  chiefly  studied  in  Paris  and  London  as 

341 


342  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

a  calamity  to  Chinese  porcelain.  The  value  of  a  Ming  vase  was  more 
serious  than  universal  war. 

The  drama  of  the  Legations  interested  the  public  much  as  though 
it  were  a  novel  of  Alexandre  Dumas,  hut  the  bearing  of  the  drama  on 
future  history  offered  an  interest  vastly  greater.  Adams  knew  no  more 
about  it  than  though  he  were  the  best-informed  statesman  in  Europe. 
Like  them  all,  he  took  for  granted  that  the.  Legations  were  massacred, 
and  that  John  Hay,  who  alone  championed  China's  "  administrative 
entity,"  would  be  massacred  too,  since  he  must  henceforth  look  on,  in 
impotence,  while  Russia  and  Germany  dismembered  China,  and  shut 
up  America  at  home.  Nine  statesmen  out  of  ten,  in  Europe,  accepted 
this  result  in  advance,  seeing  no  way  to  prevent  it.  Adams  saw  none, 
and  laughed  at  Hay  for  his  helplessness. 

When  Hay  suddenly  ignored  European  leadership,  took  the  lead 
himself,  rescued  the  Legations  and  saved  China,  Adams  looked  on,  as 
incredulous  as  Europe,  though  not  quite  so  stupid,  since,  on  that  branch 
of  education  he  knew  enough  for  his  purpose.  Nothing  so  meteoric 
had  ever  been  done  in  American  diplomacy.  On  returning  to  Wash 
ington,  January  30,  1901,  he  found  most  of  the  world  as  astonished  as 
himself,  but  less  stupid  than  usual.  For  a  moment,  indeed,  the  world 
had  been  struck  dumb  at  seeing  Hay  put  Europe  aside  and  set  the 
Washington  government  at  the  head  of  civilisation  so  quietly  that 
civilisation  submitted,  by  mere  instinct  of  docility,  to  receive  and  obey 
his  orders ;  but,  after  the  first  shock  of  silence,  society  felt  the  force 
of  the  stroke  through  its  fineness,  and  burst  into  almost  tumultuous 
applause.  Instantly  the  diplomacy  of  the  nineteenth  century,  with 
all  its  painful  scuffles  and  struggles,  was  forgotten,  and  the  American 
blushed  to  be  told  of  his  submissions  in  the  past.  History  broke  in 
halves. 

Hay  was  too  good  an  artist  not  to  feel  the  artistic  skill  of  his 
own  work,  and  the  success  reacted  on  his  health,  giving  him  fresh 
life,  for  with  him  as  with  most  men,  success  was  a  tonic,  and  depression 
a  specific  poison ;  but  as  usual,  his  troubles  nested  at  home.  Success 
doubles  strain.  President  McKinley's  diplomatic  court  had  become  the 
largest  in  the  world,  and  the  diplomatic  relations  required  far  more 
work  than  ever  before,  while  the  staff  of  the  Department  was  little 


TWILIGHT  343 

more  efficient,  and  the  friction  in  the  Senate  had  hecome  coagulated. 
Hay  took  to  studying  the  Diary  of  John  Quincy  Adams  eighty  years 
before,  and  calculated  that  the  resistance  had  increased  ahout  ten  times, 
as  measured  by  waste  of  days  and  increase  of  effort,  although  Secretary 
of  State  J.  Q.  Adams  thought  himself  very  hardly  treated.  Hay  cheer 
fully  noted  that  it  was  killing  him,  and  proved  it,  for  the  effort  of 
the  afternoon  walk  became  sometimes  painful. 

For  the  moment,  things  were  going  fairly  well,  and  Hay's  unruly 
team  were  less  fidgety,  but  Pauncefote  still  pulled  the  whole  load  and 
turned  the  dangerous  corners  safely,  while  Cassini  and  Holleben  helped 
the  Senate  to  make  what  trouble  they  could,  without  serious  offence, 
and  the  Irish,  after  the  genial  Celtic  nature,  obstructed  even  themselves. 
The  fortunate  Irish,  thanks  to  their  sympathetic  qualities,  never  made 
lasting  enmities ;  but  the  Germans  seemed  in  a  fair  way  to  rouse  ill-will 
and  even  ugly  temper  in  the  spirit  of  politics,  which  was  by  no  means 
a  part  of  Hay's  plans.  •  He  had  as  much  as  he  could  do  to  overcome 
domestic  friction,  and  felt  no  wish  to  alienate  foreign  powers.  Yet  so 
much  could  be  said  in  favor  of  the  foreigners  that  they  commonly  knew 
why  they  made  trouble,  and  were  steady  to  a  motive.  Cassini  had 
for  years  pursued,  in  Peking  as  in  Washington,  a  policy  of  his  own, 
never  disguised,  and  as  little  in  harmony  with  his  chief  as  with  Hay  ; 
he  made  his  opposition  on  fixed  lines  for  notorious  objects ;  but  Senators 
could  seldom  give  a  reason  for  obstruction.'  In  every  hundred  men, 
a  certain  number  obstruct  by  instinct,  and  try  to  invent  reasons  to  ex 
plain  it  afterwards.  The  Senate  was  no  worse  than  the  board  of  a 
University ;  but  in  corporators  as  a  rule  have  not  made  this  class  of  men 
dictators  on  purpose  to  prevent  action.  In  the  Senate,  a  single  vote 
commonly  stopped  legislation,  or,  in  committee,  stifled  discussion. 

Hay's  policy  of  removing  one  after  another,  all  irritations,  and 
closing  all  discussions  with  foreign  countries,  roused  incessant  obstruc 
tion,  which  could  be  overcome  only  by  patience  and  bargaining  in  executive 
patronage,  if  indeed  it  could  be  overcome  at  all.  The  price  actually  paid 
was  not  very  great  except  in  the  physical  exhaustion  of  Hay  and 
Pauncefote,  Root  and  McKinley.  No  serious  bargaining  of  equivalents 
could  be  attempted ;  senators  would  not  sacrifice  five  dollars  in  their  own 
States  to  gain  five  hundred  thousand  in  another ;  but  whenever  a  foreign 


344  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

country  was  willing  to  surrender  an  advantage  without  an  equivalent, 
Hay  had  a  chance  to  offer  the  Senate  a  Treaty.  In  all  such  cases  the 
price  paid  for  the  Treaty  was  paid  wholly  to  the  Senate,  and  amounted 
to  nothing  very  serious  except  in  waste  of  time  and  wear  of  strength. 
"Life  is  so  gay  and  horrid!"  laughed  Hay;  "The  Major  will  have 
promised  all  the  consulates  in  the  service ;  the  senators  will  all  come 
to  me  and  refuse  to  believe  me  dis-consulate ;  I  shall  see  all  my  treaties 
slaughtered,  one  by  one,  by  the  34-per-cent.  of  kickers  and  strikers ;  the 
only  mitigation  I  can  foresee  is  being  sick  a  good  part  of  the  time ;  I  am 
nearing  my  grand  climacteric,  and  the  great  culbute  is  approaching." 

He  was  thinking  of  his  friend  Elaine,  and  might  have  thought  of 
all  his  predecessors,  for  all  had  suffered  alike,  and  to  Adams  as  historian 
their  sufferings  had  been  a  long  delight, — the  solitary  picturesque  and 
tragic  element  in  politics, — incidentally  requiring  character-studies  like 
Aaron  Burr  and  William  B.  Giles,  Calhoun  and  Webster  and  Sumner, 
with  Sir  Forcible  Feebles  like  James  M.  Mason  and  stage-exaggerations 
like  Roscoe  Conkling.  The  Senate  took  the  place  of  Shakespeare,  and 
offered  real  Brutuses  and  Bolingbrokes,  Jack  Cades,  Falstaffs  and  Malvo- 
lios, — endless  varieties  of  human  nature  nowhere  else  to  be  studied, 
and  none  the  less  amusing  because  they  killed,  or  because  they  were 
like  school-boys  in  their  simplicity.  "  Life  is  so  gay  and  horrid !  "  Hay 
still  felt  the  humor,  though  more  and  more  rarely,  but  what  he 
felt  most  was  the  enormous  complexity  and  friction  of  the  vast  mass  he 
was  trying  to  guide.  He  bitterly  complained  that  it  had  made  him  a 
bore, — of  all  things  the  most  senatorial,  and  to  him  the  most  obnoxious. 
The  old  friend  was  lost,  and  only  the  teacher  remained,  driven  to  mad 
ness  by  the  complexities  and  multiplicities  of  his  new  world. 

To  one  who,  at  past  sixty  years  old,  is  still  passionately  seeking 
education,  these  small,  or  large,  annoyances  had  no  great  value  except 
as  measures  of  mass  and  motion.  For  him  the  practical  interest  and  the 
practical  man  were  such  as  looked  forward  to  the  next  election, 
or  perhaps,  in  corporations,  five  or  ten  years.  Scarcely  half-a-dozen 
men  in  America  could  be  named  who  were  known  to  have  looked  a 
dozen  years  ahead ;  while  any  historian  who  means  to  keep  his  alignment 
with  past  and  future  must  cover  an  horizon  of  two  generations  at  least. 
If  he  seeks  to  align  himself  with  the  future,  he  must  assume  a  condition 


TWILIGHT.  345 

of  some  sort  for  a  world  fifty  years  beyond  his  own.  Every  historian, — 
sometimes  unconsciously,  but  always  inevitably, — must  put  to  himself 
the  question : — How  long  could  such-or-such  an  outworn  system  last  ? 
He  can  never  give  himself  less  than  one  generation  to  show  the  full 
effects  of  a  changed  condition.  His  object  is  to  triangulate  from  the 
widest  possible  base  to  the  furthest  point  he  thinks  he  can  see,  which  is 
always  far  beyond  the  curvature  of  the  horizon.  He  measures  time 
by  motion  and  space  by  mass. 

To  the  practical  man,  such  an  attempt  is  idiotic,  and  probably  the 
practical  man  is  in  the  right  to-day,  since  mass  and  motion  have  been  so 
enormously  increased ;  but,  whichever  is  right, — if  the  question  of  right 
or  wrong  enters  at  all  into  the  matter, — the  historian  has  no  choice 
but  to  go  on  alone.  Even  in  his  own  profession  few  companions  offer 
help,  and  his  walk  soon  becomes  solitary,  leading  further  and  further 
into  a  wilderness  where  twilight  is  short  and  the  shadows  are  dense. 
Already  Hay  literally  staggered  in  his  tracks  for  weariness.  More  worn 
than  he,  Clarence  King  dropped.  One  day  in  the  spring  he  stopped 
an  hour  in  Washington  to  bid  good-bye,  cheerily  and  simply  telling  how 
his  doctors  had  condemned  him  to  Arizona  for  his  lungs.  All  three 
friends  knew  that  they  were  nearing  the  end,  and  that  if  it  were  not 
the  one  it  would  be  the  other ;  but  the  affectation  of  readiness  for 
death  is  a  stage  role,  and  stoicism  is  a  stupid  resource  though  the  only 
one.  Non  dolet,  Pcete  !  One  is  ashamed  of  it  even  in  the  acting. 

The  sunshine  of  life  had  not  been  so  dazzling  of  late  but  that  a  share 
of  it  flickered  out  for  Adams  and  Hay  when  King  disappeared  from 
their  lives ;  but  Hay  had  still  his  family  and  ambition,  while  Adams 
could  only  blunder  back  alone,  helplessly,  wearily,  his  eyes  rather  dim 
with  tears,  to  his  vague  trail  across  the  darkening  prairie  of  education, 
without  a  motive,  big  or  small,  except  curiosity  to  reach,  before  he  too 
should  drop,  some  point  that  would  give  him  a  far  look  ahead.  He 
was  morbidly  curious  to  see  some  light  at  the  end  of  the  passage,  as 
though  thirty  years  were  a  shadow,  and  he  were  again  to  fall  into  King's 
arms  at  the  door  of  the  last  and  only  log-cabin  left  in  life.  Time  had 
become  terribly  short,  and  the  sense  of  knowing  so  little  when  others 
knew  so  much,  crushed  out  hope. 

He  knew   not  in  what  new  direction  to  turn,  and  sat  at  his  desk, 


346  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

idly  pulling  threads  out  of  the  tangled  skein  of  science,  to-  see  whether 
or  why  they  aligned  themselves.  The  commonest  and  oldest  toy  he 
knew  was  the  child's  magnet,  with  which  he  had  played  since  babyhood, 
the  most  familiar  of  puzzles.  He  covered  his  desk  with  magnets,  and 
mapped  out  their  lines  of  force  by  compass.  Then  he  read  all  the  books 
he  could  find,  and  tried  in  vain  to  make  his  lines  of  force  agree  with 
theirs.  The  books  confounded  him.  He  could  not  credit  his  own  under 
standing.  Here  was  literally  the  most  concrete  fact  in  nature,  next  to 
gravitation  which  it  defied ;  a  force  which  must  have  radiated  lines  of 
energy  without  stop,  since  time  began,  if  not  longer,  and  which  might 
probably  go  on  radiating  after  the  sun  should  fall  into  the  earth,  since 
no  one  knew  why — or  how  —  or  what  it  radiated,  —  or  even  whether  it 
radiated  at  all.  Perhaps  the  earliest  known  of  all  natural  forces  after 
the  solar  energies,  it  seemed  to  have  suggested  no  idea  to  anyone  until 
some  mariner  bethought  himself  that  it  might  serve  for  a  pointer.  Another 
thousand  years  passed,  when  it  taught  some  other  intelligent  man  to  use 
it  as  a  pump,  supply-pipe,  sieve  or  reservoir  for  collecting  electricity, 
still  without  knowing  how  it  worked  or  what  it  was.  For  a  historian, 
the  story  of  Faraday's  experiments  and  the  invention  of  the  dynamo 
passed  belief;  it  revealed  a  condition  of  human  ignorance  and  helplessness 
before  the  commonest  forces,  such  as  his  mind  refused  to  credit.  He  could 
not  conceive  but  that  some  one,  somewhere,  could  tell  him  all  about  the 
magnet,  if  one  could  but  find  the  book, — although  he  had  been  forced  to 
admit  the  same  helplessness  in  the  face  of  gravitation ; — and  he  could 
imagine  no  reason  why  society  should  treat  radium  as  revolutionary  in 
science  when  every  infant,  for  ages  past,  had  seen  the  magnet  doing 
what  radium  did;  for  surely  the  kind  of  radiation  mattered  nothing 
compared  with  the  energy  that  radiated  and  the  matter  supplied  for 
radiation.  He  dared  not  venture  into  the  complexities  of  chemistry,  or 
microbes,  so  long  as  this  child's  toy  offered  complexities  that  befogged  his 
mind  beyond  X-rays,  and  turned  the  atom  into  an  endless  variety  of 
pumps  endlessly  pumping  an  endless  variety  of  ethers.  He  wanted  to 
ask  Madame  Curie  to  invent  a  motor  attachable  to  her  salt  of  radium, 
and  pump  its  forces  through  it,  as  Faraday  did  with  a  magnet.  He 
figured  the  human  mind  itself  as  another  radiating  matter  through  which 
man  had  always  pumped  a  subtler  fluid. 


TWILIGHT  347 

In  all  this  futility,  it  was  not  the  magnet  or  the  rays  or  the 
microbes  that  troubled  him,  or  even  his  helplessness  before  the  forces. 
To  that  he  was  used  from  childhood.  The  magnet  in  its  new  relation 
staggered  his  new  education  by  its  evidence  of  growing  complexity,  and 
multiplicity,  and  even  contradiction,  in  life.  He  could  not  escape  it; 
politics  or  science,  the  lesson  was  the  same,  and  at  every  step  it  blocked 
his  path  whichever  way  he  turned.  He  found  it  in  politics ;  he  ran 
against  it  in  science ;  he  struck  it  in  everyday  life,  as  though  he  were 
still  Adam  in  the  Garden  of  Eden  between  God  who  was  unity,  and 
Satan  who  was  complexity,  with  no  means  of  deciding  which  was  truth. 
The  problem  was  the  same  for  McKinley  as  for  Adam,  and  for  the 
Senate  as  for  Satan.  Hay  was  going  to  wreck  on  it,  like  King  and 
Adams. 

All  one's  life,  one  had  struggled  for  unity,  and  unity  had  always 
won.  The  national  government  and  the  national  unity  had  overcome 
every  resistance,  and  the  Darwinian  evolutionists  were  triumphant  over 
all  the  curates ;  yet  the  greater  the  unity  and  the  momentum,  the  worse 
became  the  complexity  and  the  friction.  One  had  in  vain  bowed  one's 
neck  to  railways,  banks,  corporations,  trusts,  and  even  to  the  popular 
will  as  far  as  one  could  understand  it, — or  even  further ; — the  multi 
plicity  of  unity  had  steadily  increased,  was  increasing,  and  threatened 
to  increase  beyond  reason.  He  had  surrendered  all  his  favorite  prejudices, 
and  foresworn  even  the  forms  of  criticism, — except  for  his  pet  amuse 
ment,  the  Senate,  which  was  a  tonic  or  stimulant  necessary  to  healthy 
life ; — he  had  accepted  uniformity  and  Pteraspis  and  ice-age  and 
tramways  and  telephones ;  and  now, — just  when  he  was  ready  to  hang 
the  crowning  garland  on  the  brow  of  a  completed  education,  science 
itself  warned  him  to  begin  it  again  from  the  beginning. 

Maundering  among  the  magnets  he  bethought  himself  that  once,  a 
full  generation  earlier,  he  had  begun  active  life  by  writing  a  con 
fession  of  geological  faith  at  the  bidding  of  Sir  Charles  Lyell,  and 
that  it  might  be  worth  looking  at  if  only  to  steady  his  vision.  He 
read  it  again,  and  thought  it  better  than  he  could  do  at  sixty-three ;  but 
elderly  minds  always  work  loose.  He  saw  his  doubts  grown  larger,  and 
became  curious  to  know  what  had  been  said  about  them  since  1870. 
The  Geological  Survey  supplied  stacks  of  volumes,  and  reading  for  steady 


348  THE  EDUCATION  OF   HENRY  ADAMS 

months ;  while,  the  longer  he  read,  the  more  he  wondered,  pondered, 
doubted  what  his  delightful  old  friend  Sir  Charles  Lyell  would  have 
said  about  it. 

Truly  the  animal  that  is  to  be  trained  to  unity  must  be  caught 
young.  Unity  is  vision ;  it  must  have  been  part  of  the  process  of 
learning  to  see.  The  older  the  mind,  the  older  its  complexities,  and 
the  further  it  looks,  the  more  it  sees,  until  even  the  stars  resolve  them 
selves  into  multiples ;  yet  the  child  will  always  see  but  one.  Adams 
asked  whether  geology  since  1867  had  drifted  towards  unity  or  multipli 
city,  and  he  felt  that  the  drift  would  depend  on  the  age  of  the  man 
who  drifted. 

Seeking  some  impersonal  point  for  measure,  he  turned  to  see  what 
had  happened  to  his  oldest  friend  and  cousin  the  ganoid  fish,  the 
Pteraspis  of  Ludlow  and  Wenlock,  with  whom  he  had  sported  when 
geological  life  was  young ;  as  though  they  had  all  remained  together 
in  time  to  act  the  Mask  of  Comus  at  Ludlow  Castle,  and  repeat  "  how 
charming  is  divine  philosophy ! "  He  felt  almost  aggrieved  to  find 
Walcott  so  vigorously  acting  the  part  of  Comus  as  to  have  flung  the 
ganoid  all  the  way  off  to  Colorado  and  far  back  into  the  Lower 
Trenton  limestone,  making  the  Pteraspis  as  modern  as  a  Mississippi 
gar-pike  by  spawning  an  ancestry  for  him,  indefinitely  more  remote, 
in  the  dawn  of  known  organic  life.  A  few  thousand  feet,  more  or  less, 
of  limestone  were  the  liveliest  amusement  to  the  ganoid,  but  they  buried 
the  uniformitarian  alive,  under  the  weight  of  his  own  uniformity.  Not 
for  all  the  ganoid  fish  that  ever  swam,  would  a  discreet  historian  dare 
to  hasard  even  in  secret  an  opinion  about  the  value  of  Natural  Selection 
by  Minute  Changes  under  Uniform  Conditions,  for  he  could  know  no 
more  about  it  than  most  of  his  neighbors  who  knew  nothing ;  but 
natural  selection  that  did  not  select, — evolution  finished  before  it  began, 
— minute  changes  that  refused  to  change  anything  during  the  whole 
geological  record, — survival  of  the  highest  order  in  a  fauna  which 
had  no  origin,  —  uniformity  under  conditions  which  had  disturbed 
everything  else  in  creation, — to  an  honest-meaning  though  ignorant 
student  who  needed  to  prove  Natural  Selection  and  not  assume 
it,  such  sequence  brought  no  peace.  He  wished  to  be  shown  that 
changes  in  form  caused  evolution  in  force ;  that  chemical  or  mechanical 


TWILIGHT  349 

energy  had,  by  natural  selection  and  minute  changes,  under  uniform 
conditions,  converted  itself  into  thought.  The  ganoid  fish  seemed  to 
prove, — to  him, — that  it  had  selected  neither  new  form  nor  new  force, 
but  that  the  curates  were  right  in  thinking  that  force  could  be  increased 
in  volume  or  raised  in  intensity  only  by  help  of  outside  force.  To  him, 
the  ganoid  was  a  huge  perplexity,  none  the  less  because  neither  he  nor 
the  ganoid  troubled  Darwinians,  but  the  more  because  it  helped  to  reveal 
that  Darwinism  seemed  to  survive  only  in  England.  In  vain  he  asked 
what  sort  of  Evolution  had  taken  its  place.  Almost  any  doctrine 
seemed  orthodox.  Even  sudden  conversions,  due  to  mere  vital  force 
acting  on  its  own  lines  quite  beyond  mechanical  explanation,  had 
cropped  up  again.  A  little  more,  and  he  would  be  driven  back  on  the 
old  independence  of  species. 

What  the  ontologist  thought  about  it  was  his  own  affair,  like  the 
theologist's  views  on  theology,  for  complexity  was  nothing  to  them ;  but 
to  the  historian  who  sought  only  the  direction  of  thought,  and  had 
begun  as  the  confident  child  of  Darwin  and  Lyell  in  1867,  the  matter 
of  direction  seemed  vital.  Then  he  had  entered  gaily  the  door  of  the 
glacial  epoch,  and  had  surveyed  a  universe  of  unities  and  uniformities. 
In  1900  he  entered  a  far  vaster  universe,  where  all  the  old  roads  ran 
about  in  every  direction,  overrunning,  dividing,  subdividing,  stopping 
abruptly,  vanishing  slowly,  with  side-paths  that  led  nowhere,  and  sequences 
that  could  not  be  proved.  The  active  geologists  had  mostly  become 
specialists  dealing  with  complexities  far  too  technical  for  an  amateur,  but 
the  old  formulas  still  seemed  to  serve  for  beginners,  as  they  had  served 
when  new. 

So  the  cause  of  the  glacial  epoch  remained  at  the  mercy  of  Lyell 
and  Croll,  although  Geikie  had  split  up  the  period  into  half  a  dozen 
intermittent  chills  in  recent  geology  and  in  the  northern  hemisphere 
alone,  while  no  geologist  had  ventured  to  assert  that  the  glaciation  of 
the  southern  hemisphere  could  possibly  be  referred  to  an  horizon  more 
remote.  Continents  still  rose  wildly  and  wildly  sank,  though  Professor 
Suess  of  Vienna  had  written  an  epoch-making  work,  showing  that 
continents  were  anchored  like  crystals,  and  only  oceans  rose  and  sank. 
LyelPs  genial  uniformity  seemed  genial  still,  for  nothing  had  taken  its 
place,  though,  in  the  interval,  granite  had  grown  young,  nothing  had 


350  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

been  explained,  and  a  bewildering  system  of  huge  overthrusts  had  upset 
geological  mechanics.  The  text-books  refused  even  to  discuss  theories, 
frankly  throwing  up  their  hands  and  avowing  that  progress  depended 
on  studying  each  rock  as  a  law  to  itself. 

Adams  had  no  more  to  do  with  the  correctness  of  the  science  than 
the  gar-pike  or  the  Port  Jackson  shark,  for  its  correctness  in  no  way 
concerned  him,  and  only  impertinence  could  lead  him  to  dispute  or 
discuss  the  principles  of  any  science;  but  the  history  of  the  mind 
concerned  the  historian  alone,  and  the  historian  had  no  vital  concern 
in  anything  else,  for  he  found  no  change  to  record  in  the  body.  In 
thought  the  Schools,  like  the  Church,  raised  ignorance  to  a  faith  and 
degraded  dogma  to  heresy.  Evolution  survived  like  the  trilobites  with 
out  evolving,  and  yet  the  evolutionists  held  the  whole  field,  and  had 
even  plucked  up  courage  to  rebel  against  the  Cossack  Ukase  of  Lord 
Kelvin  forbidding  them  to  ask  more  than  twenty  million  years  for 
their  experiments.  No  doubt  the  geologists  had  always  submitted 
sadly  to  this  last  and  utmost  violence  inflicted  on  them  by  the  Pontiff  of 
Physical  Religion  in  the  effort  to  force  unification  of  the  universe ; 
they  had  protested  with  mild  conviction  that  they  could  not  state  the 
geological  record  in  terms  of  time ;  they  had  murmured  Ignoramus 
under  their  breath ;  but  they  had  never  dared  to  assert  the  Ignorabi- 
mus  that  lay  on  the  tips  of  their  tongues. 

Yet  the  admission  seemed  close  at  hand.  Evolution  was  becoming 
change  of  form  broken  by  freaks  of  force,  and  warped  at  times  by  attrac 
tions  affecting  intelligence,  twisted  and  tortured  at  other  times  by  sheer 
violence,  cosmic,  chemical,  solar,  supersensual,  electrolytic,  —  who  knew 
what? — defying  science,  if  not  denying  known  law;  and  the  wisest  of 
men  could  but  imitate  the  Church,  and  invoke  a  "  larger  synthesis "  to 
unify  the  anarchy  again.  Historians  have  got  into  far  too  much  trouble 
by  following  schools  of  theology  in  their  efforts  to  enlarge  their  synthesis, 
that  they  should  willingly  repeat  the  process  in  science.  For  human 
purposes  a  point  must  always  be  soon  reached  where  larger  synthesis  is 
suicide. 

Politics  and  geology  pointed  alike  to  the  larger  synthesis  of  rapidly 
increasing  complexity ;  but  still  an  elderly  man  knew  that  the  change 
might  be  only  in  himself.  The  admission  cost  nothing.  Any  student, 


TWILIGHT  351 

of  any  age,  thinking  only  of  a  thought  and  not  of  his  thought,  should 
delight  in  turning  about  and  trying  the  opposite  motion,  as  he  delights 
in  the  spring  which  brings  even  to  a  tired  and  irritated  statesman  the 
larger  synthesis  of  peach-blooms,  cherry-blossoms  and  dog-wood,  to  prove 
the  folly  of  fret.  Every  school-boy  knows  that  this  sum  of  all  knowledge 
never  saved  him  from  whipping ;  mere  years  help  nothing ;  King  and 
Hay  and  Adams  could  neither  of  them  escape  floundering  through  the 
corridors  of  chaos  that  opened  as  they  passed  to  the  end ;  but  they  could 
at  least  float  with  the  stream  if  they  only  knew  which  way  the  current 
ran.  Adams  would  have  liked  to  begin  afresh  with  the  Limulus  and 
Lepidosteus  in  the  waters  of  Braintree,  side  by  side  with  Adamses  and 
Quincys  and  Harvard  College,  all  unchanged  and  unchangeable  since 
archaic  time;  but  what  purpose  would  it  serve?  A  seeker  of  truth — or 
illusion — would  be  none  the  less  restless,  though  a  shark! 


CHAPTER    XXVII 
1901 

Inevitable  Paris  beckoned,  and  resistance  became  more  and  more 
futile  as  the  store  of  years  grew  less ;  for  the  world  contains  no  other 
spot  than  Paris  where  education  can  be  pursued  from  every  side. 
Even  more  vigorously  than  in  the  twelfth  century,  Paris  taught  in  the 
twentieth,  with  no  other  school  approaching  it  for  variety  of  direction 
and  energy  of  mind.  Of  the  teaching  in  detail,  a  man  who  knew 
only  what  accident  had  taught  him  in  the  nineteenth  century,  could 
know  next  to  nothing,  since  science  had  got  quite  beyond  his  horizon, 
and  mathematics  had  become  the  only  necessary  language  of  thought ; 
but  one  could  play  with  the  toys  of  childhood,  including  Ming  porce 
lain,  Salons  of  painting,  Operas  and  theatres,  Beaux  Arts  and  Gothic 
architecture,  theology  and  anarchy,  in  any  jumble  of  time;  or  totter  about 
with  Joe  Stickney,  talking  Greek  philosophy  or  recent  poetry,  or  study 
ing  "  Louise "  at  the  Opera  Comique,  or  discussing  the  charm  of  youth 
and  the  Seine  with  Bay  Lodge  and  his  exquisite  young  wife.  Paris 
remained  Parisian  in  spite  of  change,  mistress  of  herself  though  China 
fell.  Scores  of  artists, — sculptors  and  painters,  poets  and  dramatists, 
workers  in  gems  and  metals,  designers  in  stuffs  and  furniture, — hundreds 
of  chemists,  physicists,  even  philosophers,  philologists,  physicians  and 
historians, — were  at  work,  a  thousand  times  as  actively  as  ever  before, 
and  the  mass  and  originality  of  their  product  would  have  swamped  any 
previous  age,  as  it  very  nearly  swamped  its  own ;  but  the  effect  was  one  of 
chaos,  and  Adams  stood  as  helpless  before  it  as  before  the  chaos  of 
New  York.  His  single  thought  was  to  keep  in  front  of  the  movement, 
352 


TEUFELSDROCK  353 

and,  if  necessary,  lead  it  to  chaos,  but  never  fall  behind.  Only  the 
young  have  time  to  linger  in  the  rear. 

The  amusements  of  youth  had  to  be  abandoned,  for  not  even 
pugilism  needs  more  staying-power  than  the  labors  of  the  pale-faced 
student  of  the  Latin  Quarter  in  the  haunts  of  Montparnasse  or  Mont- 
martre,  where  one  must  feel  no  fatigue  at  two  o'clock  in  the  morning 
in  a  beer-garden  even  after  four  hours  of  Mouuet  Sully  at  the  Theatre 
Francais.  In  those  branches,  education  might  be  called  closed.  Fashion, 
too,  could  no  longer  teach  anything  worth  knowing  to  a  man  who, 
holding  open  the  door  into  the  next  world,  regarded  himself  as  merely 
looking  round  to  take  a  last  glance  of  this.  The  glance  was  more 
amusing  than  any  he  had  known  in  his  active  life,  but  it  was  more, — 
infinitely  more — chaotic  and  complex. 

Still  something  remained  to  be  done  for  education  beyond  the  chaos, 
and  as  usual  the  woman  helped.  For  thirty  years  or  thereabouts,  he  had 
been  repeating  that  he  really  must  go  to  Baireuth.  Suddenly  Mrs. 
Lodge  appeared  on  the  horizon  and  bade  him  come.  He  joined  them, 
parents  and  children,  alert  and  eager  and  appreciative  as  ever,  at  the 
little  old  town  of  Rothenburg-on-the-Taube,  and  they  went  on  to  the 
Baireuth  festival  together. 

Thirty  years  earlier,  a  Baireuth  festival  would  have  made  an  immense 
stride  in  education,  and  the  spirit  of  the  master  would  have  opened  a 
vast  new  world.  In  1901  the  effect  was  altogether  different  from  the 
spirit  of  the  master.  In  1876  the  rococo  setting  of  Baireuth  seemed  the 
correct  atmosphere  for  Siegfried  and  Briinhilde,  perhaps  even  for  Parsifal. 
Baireuth  was  out  of  the  world,  calm,  contemplative  and  remote.  In 
1901  the  world  had  altogether  changed,  and  Wagner  had  became  a  part 
of  it,  as  familiar  as  Shakespeare  or  Bret  Harte.  The  rococo  element 
jarred.  Even  the  Hudson  and  the  Susquehannah, — perhaps  the  Potomac 
itself, — had  often  risen  to  drown  out  the  Gods  of  Walhalla,  and  one 
could  hardly  listen  to  the  Gotterdammerung  in  New  York,  among 
throngs  of  intense  young  enthusiasts,  without  paroxysms  of  nervous 
excitement  that  toned  down  to  musical  philistinism  at  Baireuth,  as  though 
the  Gods  were  Bavarian  composers.  New  York  or  Paris  might  be 
whatever  one  pleased, — venal,  sordid,  vulgar, — but  society  nursed  there, 
in  the  rottenness  of  its  decay,  certain  anarchistic  ferments,  and  thought 
23 


354  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

them  proof  of  art.  Perhaps  they  were ;  and  at  all  events,  Wagner 
was  chiefly  responsible  for  them  as  artistic  emotion.  New  York  knew 
better  than  Baireuth  what  Wagner  meant,  and  the  frivolities  of  Paris 
had  more  than  once  included  the  rising  of  the  Seine  to  drown  out 
the  Etoile  or  Montmartre,  as  well  as  the  sorcery  of  ambition  that  casts 
spells  of  enchantment  on  the  hero.  Paris  still  felt  a  subtile  flattery 
in  the  thought  that  the  last  great  tragedy  of  Gods  and  men  would  surely 
happen  there,  while  no  one  could  conceive  of  its  happening  at  Baireuth, 
or  would  care  if  it  did.  Paris  coquetted  with  catastrophe  as  though 
it  were  an  old  mistress, — faced  it  almost  gaily  as  it  had  done  so  often, 
for  they  were  acquainted  since  Rome  began  to  ravage  Europe ; — while 
New  York  met  it  with  a  glow  of  fascinated  horror,  like  an  inevitable 
earthquake,  and  heard  Ternina  announce  it  with  conviction  that  made 
nerves  quiver  and  thrill  as  they  had  long  ceased  to  do  under  the 
accents  of  popular  oratory  proclaiming  popular  virtue.  Flattery  had  lost 
its  charm,  but  the  Fluch-motif  went  home. 

Adams  had  been  carried  with  the  tide  till  Briinhilde  had  become 
a  habit  and  Ternina  an  ally.  He  too  had  played  with  anarchy ; — though 
not  with  socialism,  which,  to  young  men  who  nourished  artistic  emotions 
under  the  dome  of  the  Pantheon,  seemed  hopelessly  bourgeois,  and 
lowest  middle-class.  Bay  Lodge  and  Joe  Stickney  had  given  birth  to 
the  wholly  new  and  original  party  of  Conservative  Christian  Anarchists, 
to  restore  true  poetry  under  the  inspiration  of  the  Gotterdammerung. 
Such  a  party  saw  no  inspiration  in  Baireuth,  where  landscape,  history  and 
audience  were — relatively — stodgy,  and  where  the  only  emotion  was  a 
musical  dilettantism  that  the  master  had  abhorred. 

Yet  Baireuth  still  amused  even  a  conversative  Christian  anarchist 
who  cared  as  little  as  "  Grane,  mein  Ross,"' whether  the  singers  sang 
false,  and  who  came  only  to  learn  what  Wagner  had  supposed  himself 
to  mean.  This  end  attained  as  pleased  Frau  Wagner  and  the  Heiliger 
Geist,  he  was  ready  to  go  on ;  and  the  Senator,  yearning  for  sterner 
study,  pointed  to  a  haven  at  Moscow.  For  years  Adams  had  taught 
American  youth  never  to  travel  without  a  senator  who  was  useful  even 
in  America  at  times,  but  indispensable  in  Russia  where,  in  1901, 
anarchists,  even  though  conservative  and  Christian,  were  ill-seen. 

This  wing   of  the   anarchistic   party  consisted  rigorously  of  but  two 


TEUFELSDROCK  355 

members,  Adams  and  Bay  Lodge.  The  conservative  Christian  anarchist, 
as  a  party,  drew  life  from  Hegel  and  Schopenhauer  rightly  understood. 
By  the  necessity  of  their  philosophical  descent,  each  member  of  the  frater 
nity  denounced  the  other  as  unequal  to  his  lofty  task  and  inadequate 
to  grasp  it.  Of  course,  no  third  member  could  be  so  much  as  consid 
ered,  since  the  great  principle  of  contradiction  could  be  expressed  only 
by  opposites;  and  no  agreement  could  be  conceived,  because  anarchy,  by 
definition,  must  be  chaos  and  collision,  as  in  the  kinetic  theory  of  a  perfect 
gas.  Doubtless  this  law  of  contradiction  was  itself  agreement,  a  restric 
tion  of  personal  liberty  inconsistent  with  freedom ;  but  the  "  larger 
synthesis  "  admitted  a  limited  agreement  provided  it  were  strictly  confined 
to  the  end  of  larger  contradiction.  Thus  the  great  end  of  all  philosophy 
— the  "larger  synthesis" — was  attained,  but  the  process  was  arduous, 
and  while  Adams,  as  the  older  member,  assumed  to  declare  the  principle, 
Lodge  necessarily  denied  both  the  assumption  and  the  principle  in  order 
to  assure  its  truth. 

Adams  proclaimed  that  in  the  last  synthesis,  order  and  anarchy  were 
one,  but  that  the  unity  was  chaos.  As  anarchist,  conservative  and 
Christian,  he  had  no  motive  or  duty  but  to  attain  the  end ;  and,  to  hasten 
it,  he  was  bound  to  accelerate  progress ;  to  concentrate  energy  ;  to  accumu 
late  power ;  to  multiply  and  intensify  forces ;  to  reduce  friction,  increase 
velocity  and  magnify  momentum,  partly  because  this  was  the  mechanical 
law  of  the  universe  as  science  explained  it;  but  partly  also  in  order  to 
get  done  with  the  present  which  artists  and  some  others  complained  of; 
and  finally, — and  chiefly — because  a  rigorous  philosophy  required  it, 
in  order  to  penetrate  the  beyond,  and  satisfy  man's  destiny  by  reaching 
the  largest  synthesis  in  its  ultimate  contradiction. 

Of  course  the  untaught  and  futile  critic  instantly  objected  that  this 
scheme  was  neither  conservative,  Christian  nor  anarchic,  but  such  objection 
meant  only  that  the  critic  should  begin  his  education  in  any  infant 
school  in  order  to  learn  that  anarchy  which  should  be  logical  would  cease 
to  be  anarchic.  To  the  conservative  Christian  anarchist,  the  amiable 
doctrines  of  Kropotkine  were  sentimental  ideas  of  Russian  mental  inertia 
covered  with  the  name  of  anarchy  merely  to  disguise  their  innocence ; 
and  the  outpourings  of  Elisee  Reclus  were  ideals  of  the  French  ouvrier, 
diluted  with  absinthe,  resulting  in  a  bourgeois'  dream  of  order  and 


356  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

inertia.  Neither  made  a  pretence  of  anarchy  except  as  a  momentary  stage 
towards  order  and  unity.  Neither  of  them  had  formed  any  other  con 
ception  of  the  universe  than  what  they  had  inherited  from  the  priestly 
class  to  which  their  minds  obviously  belonged.  With  them,  as  with 
the  socialist,  communist  or  collectivist,  the  mind  that  followed  nature 
had  no  relation ;  if  anarchists  needed  order,  they  must  go  back  to  the 
twelfth  century  where  their  thought  had  enjoyed  its  thousand  years  of 
reign.  The  conservative  Christian  anarchist  could  have  no  associate,  no 
object,  no  faith  except  the  nature  of  nature  itself;  and  his  "larger 
synthesis  "  had  only  the  fault  of  being  so  supremely  true  that  even  the 
highest  obligation  of  duty  could  scarcely  oblige  Lodge  to  deny  it  in  order 
to  prove  it.  Only  the  self-evident  truth  that  no  philosophy  of  order — 
except  the  Church  —  had  ever  satisfied  the  philosopher  reconciled  the 
conservative  Christian  anarchist  to  prove  his  own. 

Naturally  these  ideas  were  so  far  in  advance  of  the  age  that  hardly 
more  people  could  understand  them  than  understood  Wagner  or  Hegel ; 
for  that  matter,  since  the  time  of  Socrates,  wise  men  have  been  mostly 
shy  of  claiming  to  understand  anything ;  but  such  refinements  were 
Greek  or  German,  and  affected  the  practical  American  but  little.  He 
admitted  that,  for  the  moment,  the  darkness  was  dense.  He  could  not 
affirm  with  confidence,  even  to  himself,  that  his  "  largest  synthesis  "  would 
certainly  turn  out  to  be  chaos,  since  he  would  be  equally  obliged  to 
deny  the  chaos.  The  poet  groped  blindly  for  an  emotion.  The  play 
of  thought  for  thought's  sake  had  mostly  ceased.  The  throb  of  fifty  or 
a  hundred  million  steam  horse-power,  doubling  every  ten  years,  and 
already  more  despotic  than  all  the  horses  that  ever  lived,  and  all  the 
riders  they  ever  carried,  drowned  rhyme  and  reason.  No  one  was  to 
blame,  for  all  were  equally  servants  of  the  power,  and  worked  merely 
to  increase  it ;  but  the  conversative  Christian  anarchist  saw  light. 

Thus  the  student  of  Hegel  prepared  himself  for  a  visit  to  Russia 
in  order  to  enlarge  his  "  synthesis  ; " — and  much  he  needed  it !  In 
America  all  were  conservative  Christian  anarchists ;  the  faith  was  national, 
racial,  geographic.  The  attitude  of  expectation,  optimism,  bluff,  had 
characterised  the  popular  mind  from  far  back,  so  that  society  was  ready 
for  any  phase,  and  confident  in  making  money  out  of  it.  The  true 
American  had  never  seen  such  supreme  virtue  in  any  of  the  innumerable 


TEUFELSDKOCK  357 

shades  between  social  anarchy  and  social  order  as  to  mark  it  for  exclu 
sively  human  and  his  own.  He  never  had  known  a  complete  union 
either  in  Church  or  State  or  Thought,  and  had  never  seen  any  need  for 
it.  The  freedom  gave  him  courage  to  meet  any  contradiction,  and 
intelligence  enough  to  ignore  it.  Exactly  the  opposite  condition  had 
marked  Russian  growth.  The  Tsar's  empire  was  a  phase  of  conservative 
Christian  anarchy  more  interesting  to  history  than  all  the  complex  variety 
of  American  newspapers,  schools,  trusts,  sects,  frauds  and  Congressmen. 
These  were  nature, — pure  and  anarchic  as  the  conservative  Christian 
anarchist  saw  nature  ; — active,  vibrating,  mostly  unconscious,  and  quickly 
reacting  on  force ;  but,  from  the  first  glimpse  one  caught  from  the 
sleeping-car  window,  in  the  early  morning,  of  the  Polish  Jew  at  the 
accidental  railway-station,  in  all  his  weird  horror,  to  the  last  vision  of  the 
Russian  peasant,  lighting  his  candle  and  kissing  his  Ikon  before  the 
railway  Virgin  in  the  station  at  St.  Petersburg,  all  was  logical,  conservative, 
Christian  and  anarchic.  Russia  had  nothing  in  common  with  any  ancient 
or  modern  world  that  history  knew ;  she  had  been  the  oldest  source  of 
all  civilisation  in  Europe,  and  had  kept  none  for  herself;  neither  Europe 
nor  Asia  had  ever  known  such  a  phase,  which  seemed  to  fall  into  no 
line  of  evolution  whatever,  and  was  as  wonderful  to  the  student  of  Gothic 
architecture  in  the  twelfth  century,  as  to  the  student  of  the  dynamo  in 
the  twentieth.  Studied  in  the  dry  light  of  conservative  Christian  anarchy, 
Russia  became  luminous  like  the  salt  of  radium ;  but  with  a  negative 
luminosity  as  though  she  were  a  substance  whose  energies  had  been 
sucked  out, — an  inert  residuum, — with  movement  of  pure  inertia.  From 
the  car-window  one  seemed  to  float  past  undulations  of  nomad  life, — 
herders  deserted  by  their  leaders  and  herds, — wandering  waves  stopped 
in  their  wanderings, — waiting  for  their  winds  or  warriors  to  return  and 
lead  them  westward ;  tribes  that  had  camped,  like  Khirgis,  for  the  season, 
and  had  lost  the  means  of  motion  without  acquiring  the  habit  of 
permanence.  They  waited  and  suffered.  As  they  stood  they  were  out  of 
place,  and  could  never  have  been  normal.  Their  country  acted  as  a  sink 
of  energy  like  the  Caspian  Sea,  and  its  surface  kept  the  uniformity  of  ice 
and  snow.  One  Russian  peasant  kissing  an  Ikon  on  a  Saint's  day,  in 
the  Kremlin,  served  for  a  hundred  million.  The  student  had  no  need  to 
study  Wallace,  or  reread  Tolstoi  or  Tourgueneff  or  Dostoiewski  to  refresh 


358  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

his  memory  of  the  most  poignant  analysis  of  human  inertia  ever  put  in 
words  ;  Gorki  was  more  than  enough  :  Kropotkine  answered  every  purpose. 

The  Russian  people  could  never  have  changed, — could  they  ever 
he  changed  ?  Could  inertia  of  race,  on  such  a  scale,  be  broken  up,  or 
take  new  form  ?  Even  in  America,  on  an  infinitely  smaller  scale,  the 
question  was  old  and  unanswered.  All  the  so-called  primitive  races, 
and  some  nearer  survivals,  had  raised  doubts  which  persisted  against 
the  most  obstinate  convictions  of  evolution.  The  senator  himself  shook  his 
head,  and  after  surveying  Warsaw  and  Moscow  to  his  content,  went  on 
to  St.  Petersburg  to  ask  questions  of  Mr.  de  Witte  and  Prince  Khil- 
koff.  Their  conversation  added  new  doubts;  for  their  efforts  had  been 
immense,  their  expenditure  enormous,  and  their  results  on  the  people 
seemed  to  be  uncertain  as  yet,  even  to  themselves.  Ten  or  fifteen  years 
of  violent  stimulus  seemed  resulting  in  nothing,  for,  since  1898,  Russia 
lagged. 

The  tourist-student,  having  duly  reflected,  asked  the  senator  whether 
he  should  allow  three  generations,  or  more,  to  swing  the  Russian  people 
into  the  western  movement.  The  senator  seemed  disposed  to  ask  for 
more.  The  student  had  nothing  to  say.  For  him,  all  opinion  founded 
on  fact,  must  be  error,  because  the  facts  can  never  be  complete,  and 
their  relations  must  be  always  infinite.  Very  likely,  Russia  would 
instantly  become  the  most  brilliant  constellation  of  human  progress  through 
all  the  ordered  stages  of  good ;  but  meanwhile  one  might  give  a  value  as 
movement  of  inertia  to  the  mass,  and  assume  a  slow  acceleration  that 
would,  at  the  end  of  a  generation,  leave  the  gap  between  east  and  west 
relatively  the  same. 

This  result  reached,  the  Lodges  thought  their  moral  improvement 
required  a  visit  to  Berlin ;  but  forty  years  of  varied  emotions  had  not 
deadened  Adams's  memories  of  Berlin,  and  he  preferred,  at  any  cost,  to 
escape  new  ones.  When  the  Lodges  started  for  Germany,  Adams  took 
steamer  for  Sweden  and  landed  happily,  in  a  day  or  two,  at  Stockholm. 

Until  the  student  is  fairly  sure  that  his  problem  is  soluble,  he  gains 
little  by  obstinately  insisting  on  solving  it.  One  might  doubt  whether 
Mr.  de  Witte  himself,  or  Prince  Khilkoff,  or  any  Grand  Duke,  or  the 
Emperor,  knew  much  more  about  it  than  their  neighbors ;  and  Adams 
was  quite  sure  that,  even  in  America,  he  should  listen  with  uncertain 


TEUFELSDROCK  359 

confidence  to  the  views  of  any  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  or  Railway 
President,  or  President  of  the  United  States  whom  he  had  ever  known, 
that  should  concern  the  America  of  the  next  generation.  The  mere 
fact  that  any  man  should  dare  to  offer  them  would  prove  his  incompe 
tence  to  judge.  Yet  Russia  was  too  vast  a  force  to  be  treated  as  an 
object  of  unconcern.  As  inertia,  if  in  no  other  way,  she  represented  three- 
fourths  of  the  human  race,  and  her  movement  might  be  the  true 
movement  of  the  future,  against  the  hasty  and  unsure  acceleration  of 
America.  No  one  could  yet  know  what  would  best  suit  humanity,  and 
the  tourist  who  carried  his  La  Fontaine  in  mind,  caught  himself  talking 
as  bear  or  as  monkey  according  to  the  mirror  he  held  before  him.  "Am 
I  satisfied?"  he  asked: — 

'  Moi  ?  pourquoi  non  ? 

N'ai-je  pas  quatre  pieds  aussi  bien  que  les  autres? 
Mon  portrait  jusqu'ici  ne  m'a  rien  reproche  ; 
Mais  pour  mon  frere  1'ours,  on  ne  1'a  qu'elmuche1  ; 
Jamais,  s'il  me  veut  croire,  il  ne  se  fera  peindre.' 

Granting  that  his  brother  the  bear  lacked  perfection  in  details,  his 
own  figure  as  monkey  was  not  necessarily  ideal  or  decorative,  nor  was 
he  in  the  least  sure  what  form  it  might  take  even  in  one  generation. 
He  had  himself  never  ventured  to  dream  of  three.  No  man  could  guess 
what  the  Daimler  motor  and  X-rays  would  do  to  him ;  but  so  much  was 
sure ;  the  monkey  and  motor  were  terribly  afraid  of  the  bear ; — how 
much,  only  a  man  close  to  their  foreign  departments  knew.  As  the 
monkey  looked  back  across  the  Baltic  from  the  safe  battlements  of 
Stockholm,  Russia  looked  more  portentous  than  from  the  Kremlin. 

The  image  was  that  of  the  retreating  ice-cap, —  a  wall  of  archaic 
glacier,  as  fixed,  as  ancient,  as  eternal,  as  the  wall  of  archaic  ice  that 
blocked  the  ocean  a  few  hundred  miles  to  the  northward,  and  more 
likely  to  advance.  Scandinavia  had  been  ever  at  its  mercy.  Europe 
had  never  changed.  The  imaginary  line  that  crossed  the  level  conti 
nent  from  the  Baltic  to  the  Black  Sea,  merely  extended  the  northern 
barrier-line.  The  Hungarians  and  Poles  on  one  side  still  struggled 
against  the  Russian  inertia  of  race,  and  retained  their  own  energies 
under  the  same  conditions  that  caused  inertia  across  the  frontier.  Race 


360  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

ruled  the  conditions ;  conditions  hardly  affected  race ;  and  yet  no  one 
could  tell  the  patient  tourist  what  race  was,  or  how  it  should  be 
known.  History  offered  a  feeble  and  delusive  smile  at  the  sound  of 
the  word ;  evolutionists  and  ethnologists  disputed  its  very  existence ; 
no  one  knew  what  to  make  of  it ;  yet,  without  the  clue,  history  was 
a  nursery  tale. 

The  Germans,  Scandinavians,  Poles  and  Hungarians,  energetic  as 
they  were,  had  never  held  their  own  against  the  heterogeneous  mass 
of  inertia  called  Russia,  and  trembled  with  terror  whenever  Russia 
moved.  From  Stockholm  one  looked  back  on  it  as  though  it  were  an 
ice-sheet,  and  so  had  Stockholm  watched  it  for  centuries.  In  contrast 
with  the  dreary  forests  of  Russia  and  the  stern  streets  of  St.  Peters 
burg,  Stockholm  seemed  a  southern  vision,  and  Sweden  lured  the  tourist 
on.  Through  a  cheerful  New  England  landscape  and  bright  autumn, 
he  rambled  northwards  till  he  found  himself  at  Drontjem  and  discovered 
Norway.  Education  crowded  upon  him  in  immense  masses  as  he  tri 
angulated  these  vast  surfaces  of  history  about  which  he  had  lectured 
and  read  for  a  life-time.  When  the  historian  fully  realises  his  ignor 
ance, — which  sometimes  happens  to  Americans, — he  becomes  even  more 
tiresome  to  himself  than  to  others,  because  his  na'ivetg  is  irrepressible. 
Adams  could  not  get  over  his  astonishment,  though  he  had  preached 
the  Norse  doctrine  all  his  life  against  the  stupid  and  beer-swilling  Saxon 
boors  whom  Freeman  loved,  and  who,  to  the  despair  of  science,  produced 
Shakespeare.  Mere  contact  with  Norway  started  voyages  of  thought,  and, 
under  their  illusions,  he  took  the  mail  steamer  to  the  north,  and  on 
September  14,  reached  Hammerfest. 

Frivolous  amusement  was  hardly  what  one  saw,  through  the  equinoc 
tial  twilight,  peering  at  the  flying  tourist,  down  the  deep  fiords,  from  dim 
patches  of  snow,  where  the  last  Laps  and  reindeer  were  watching  the 
mail-steamer  thread  the  intricate  channels  outside,  as  their  ancestors  had 
watched  the  first  Norse  fisherman  learn  them  in  the  succession  of  time ; 
but  it  was  not  the  Laps,  or  the  snow,  or  the  arctic  gloom,  that  impressed 
the  tourist,  so  much  as  the  lights  of  an  electro-magnetic  civilisation 
and  the  stupefying  contrast  with  Russia,  which  more  and  more  insisted 
on  taking  the  first  place  in  historical  interest.  Nowhere  had  the  new 
forces  so  vigorously  corrected  the  errors  of  the  old,  or  so  effectively 


TEUFELSDROCK  361 

redressed  the  balance  of  the  ecliptic.  As  one  approached  the  end, — 
the  spot  where,  seventy  years  before,  a  futile  Carlylean  Teufelsdrock 
had  stopped  to  ask  futile  questions  of  the  silent  infinite, — the  infinite 
seemed  to  have  become  loquacious,  not  to  say  familiar,  chattering  gossip 
in  one's  ear.  An  installation  of  electric  lighting  and  telephones  led 
tourists  close  up  to  the  polar  ice-cap,  beyond  the  level  of  the  magnetic 
pole ;  and  there  the  newer  Teufelsdrock  sat  dumb  with  surprise,  and 
glared  at  the  permanent  electric  lights  of  Hammerfest. 

He  had  good  reason, — better  than  the  Teufelsdrock  of  1830  in  his 
liveliest  Scotch  imagination,  ever  dreamed,  or  mortal  man  had  ever 
told.  At  best,  a  week  in  these  dim  northern  seas,  without  means  of 
speech,  within  the  arctic  circle,  at  the  equinox,  lent  itself  to  gravity 
if  not  to  gloom  ;  but  only  a  week  before,  breakfasting  in  the  restaurant 
at  Stockholm,  his  eye  had  caught,  across  the  neighboring  table,  a  head 
line  in  a  Swedish  newspaper,  announcing  an  attempt  on  the  life  of 
President  McKinley,  and  from  Stockholm  to  Drontjem,  and  so  up  the 
coast  to  Hammerfest,  day  after  day  the  news  came,  telling  of  the  Presi 
dent's  condition,  and  the  doings  and  sayings  of  Hay  and  Roosevelt, 
until  at  last  a  little  journal  was  cried  on  reaching  some  dim  haven, 
announcing  the  President's  death  a  few  hours  before.  To  Adams  the 
death  of  McKinley  and  the  advent  of  Roosevelt  were  not  wholly  void 
of  personal  emotion,  but  this  was  little  in  comparison  with  his  depth 
of  wonder  at  hearing  hourly  reports  from  his  most  intimate  friends, 
sent  to  him  far  within  the  realm  of  night,  not  to  please  him,  but  to 
correct  the  faults  of  the  solar  system.  The  electro-dynamo-social  universe 
worked  better  than  the  sun. 

No  such  strange  chance  had  ever  happened  to  a  historian  before, 
and  it  upset  for  -the  moment  his  whole  philosophy  of  conservative  anarchy. 
The  acceleration  was  marvellous,  and  wholly  in  the  lines  of  unity.  To 
recover  his  grasp  of  chaos,  he  must  look  back  across  the  gulf  to  Russia, 
and  the  gap  seemed  to  have  suddenly  become  an  abyss.  Russia  was 
infinitely  distant.  Yet  the  nightmare  of  the  glacial  ice-cap  still  pressed 
down  on  him  from  the  hills,  in  full  vision,  and  no  one  could  look  out 
on  the  dusky  and  oily  sea  that  lapped  these  spectral  islands  without 
consciousness  that  only  a  day's  steaming  to  the  northward  would  bring 
him  to  the  ice-barrier,  ready  at  any  moment  to  advance,  which  obliged 


362  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

tourists  to  stop  where  Laps  and  reindeer  and  Norse  fisherman  had  stopped 
so  long  ago  that  memory  of  their  very  origin  was  lost.  Adams  had 
never  before  met  a  ne  plus  ultra,  and  knew  not  what  to  make  of  it ;  but 
he  felt  at  least  the  emotion  of  his  Norwegian  fishermen  ancestors,  doubtless 
numbering  hundreds  of  thousands,  jammed  with  their  faces  to  the  sea, 
the  ice  on  the  north,  the  ice-cap  of  Russian  inertia  pressing  from  behind, 
and  the  ice  a  trifling  danger  compared  with  the  inertia.  From  the  day 
they  first  followed  the  retreating  ice-cap  round  the  North  Cape,  down 
to  the  present  moment,  their  problem  was  the  same. 

The  new  Teufelsdrock,  though  considerably  older  than  the  old  one, 
saw  no  clearer  into  past  or  future,  but  he  was  fully  as  much  perplexed. 
From  the  archaic  ice-barrier  to  the  Caspian  Sea,  a  long  line  of  division, 
permanent  since  ice  and  inertia  first  took  possession,  divided  his  lines  of 
force,  with  no  relation  to  climate  or  geography  or  soil. 

The  less  a  tourist  knows,  the  fewer  mistakes  he  need  make,  for  he 
will  not  expect  himself  to  explain  ignorance.  A  century  ago  he  carried 
letters  and  sought  knowledge ;  to-day  he  knows  that  no  one  knows ;  he 
needs  too  much  and  ignorance  is  learning.  He  wandered  south  again,  and 
came  out  at  Kiel,  Hamburg,  Bremen  and  Cologne.  A  mere  glance  showed 
him  that  here  was  a  Germany  new  to  mankind.  Hamburg  was  almost 
as  American  as  St.  Louis.  In  forty  years,  the  green  rusticity  of  Diisseldorf 
had  taken  on  the  sooty  grime  of  Birmingham.  The  Rhine  in  1900 
resembled  the  Rhine  of  1858  much  as  it  resembled  the  Rhine  of  the 
Salic  Franks.  Cologne  was  a  railway-centre  that  had  completed  its  Cathe 
dral  which  bore  an  absent-minded  air  of  a  cathedral  of  Chicago.  The 
thirteenth  century,  carefully  strained-off,  catalogued  and  locked  up,  was 
visible  to  tourists  as  a  kind  of  Neanderthal,  cave-dwelling,  curiosity.  The 
Rhine  was  more  modern  than  the  Hudson,  as  might  well  be,  since  it  pro 
duced  far  more  coal ;  but  all  this  counted  for  little  beside  the  radical 
change  in  the  lines  of  force. 

In  1858  the  whole  plain  of  northern  Europe,  as  well  as  the  Danube 
in  the  south,  bore  evident  marks  of  being  still  the  prehistoric  highway 
between  Asia  and  the  ocean.  The  trade-route  followed  the  old  routes  of 
invasion,  and  Cologne  was  a  resting-place  between  Warsaw  and  Flanders. 
Throughout  northern  Germany,  Russia  was  felt  even  more  powerfully 
than  France.  In  1901  Russia  had  vanished,  and  not  even  France  was 
felt;  hardly  England  or  America.  Coal  alone  was  felt, — its  stamp  alone 


TEUFELSDROCK  363 

pervaded  the  Rhine  district  and  persisted  to  Picardy, — and  the  stamp 
was  the  same  as  that  of  Birmingham  and  Pittsburg.  The  Rhine 
produced  the  same  power,  and  the  power  produced  the  same  people, — 
the  same  mind, — the  same  impulse.  For  a  man  of  sixty-three  years  old 
who  had  no  hope  of  earning  a  living,  these  three  months  of  education 
were  the  most  arduous  he  ever  attempted,  and  Russia  was  the  most 
indigestible  morsel  he  ever  met ;  but  the  sum  of  it,  viewed  from  Cologne, 
seemed  reasonable.  From  Hammerfest  to  Cherbourg  on  one  shore  of 
the  ocean, — from  Halifax  to  Norfolk  on  the  other, — one  great  empire 
was  ruled  by  one  great  emperor — Coal.  Political  and  human  jealousies 
might  tear  it  apart  or  divide  it,  but  the  power  and  the  empire  were  one. 
Unity  had  gained  that  ground.  Beyond  lay  Russia,  and  there  an  older, 
perhaps  a  surer,  power,  resting  on  the  eternal  law  of  inertia,  held  its 
own. 

As  a  personal  matter,  the  relative  value  of  the  two  powers  became 
more  interesting  every  year ;  for  the  mass  of  Russian  inertia  was  moving 
irresistibly  over  China,  and  John  Hay  stood  in  its  path.  As  long  as 
de  Witte  ruled,  Hay  was  safe.  Should  de  Witte  fall,  Hay  would 
totter.  One  could  only  sit  down  and  watch  the  doings  of  Mr.  de  Witte 
and  Mr.  de  Plehve. 


CHAPTER    XXVIII 

1902 

America  has  always  taken  tragedy  lightly.  Too  busy  to  stop  the 
activity  of  their  twenty-million-horse-power  society,  Americans  ignore 
tragic  motives  that  would  have  overshadowed  the  middle-ages ;  and 
the  world  learns  to  regard  assassination  as  a  form  of  hysteria,  and  death 
as  neurosis,  to  be  treated  by  a  rest-cure.  Three  hideous  political  murders, 
that  would  have  fattened  the  Eumenides  with  horror,  have  thrown  scarcely 
a  shadow  on  the  White  House. 

The  year  1901  was  a  year  of  tragedy  that  seemed  to  Hay  to  center 
on  himself.  First  came,  in  summer,  the  accidental  death  of  his  son,  Del 
Hay.  Close  on  the  tragedy  of  his  son,  followed  that  of  his  chief,  "  all 
the  more  hideous  that  we  were  so  sure  of  his  recovery."  The  world 
turned  suddenly  into  a  grave-yard.  "  I  have  acquired  the  funeral  habit." 
"  Nicolay  is  dying.  I  went  to  see  him  yesterday,  and  he  did  not 
know  me."  Among  the  letters  of  condolence  showered  upon  him  was  one 
from  Clarence  King  at  Pasadena,  "heart-breaking  in  grace  and  tenderness, 
— the  old  King  manner;"  and  King  himself  "simply  waiting  till  nature 
and  the  foe  have  done  their  struggle."  The  tragedy  of  King  impressed 
him  intensely  : — "  There  you  have  it  in  the  face  !  "  he  said  ; — "  the  best 
and  brightest  man  of  his  generation,  with  talents  immeasurably  beyond 
any  of  his  contemporaries;  with  industry  that  has  often  sickened  me 
to  witness  it ;  with  everything  in  his  favor  but  blind  luck ;  hounded  by 
disaster  from  his  cradle,  with  none  of  the  joy  of  life  to  which  he  was 
entitled,  dying  at  last,  with  nameless  suffering,  alone  and  uncared  for,  in 
a  California  tavern.  Qa  vous  amuse,  la  vie?" 

The  first  summons  that  met  Adams,  before  he  had  even  landed  on 
364 


THE  HEIGHT  OF  KNOWLEDGE  365 

the  pier  at  New  York,  December  29,  was  to  Clarence  King's  funeral, 
and  from  the  funeral  service  he  had  no  gayer  road  to  travel  than  that 
which  led  to  Washington,  where  a  revolution  had  occurred  that  must  in 
any  case  have  made  the  men  of  his  age  instantly  old,  but  which,  besides 
hurrying  to  the  front  the  generation  that  till  then  he  had  regarded  as 
boys,  could  not  fail  to  break  the  social  ties  that  had  till  then  held  them 
all  together. 

£7a  vous  amuse,  la  vie  f  Honestly,  the  lessons  of  education  were 
becoming  too  trite.  Hay  himself,  probably  for  the  first  time,  felt  half 
glad  that  Roosevelt  should  want  him  to  stay  in  office,  if  only  to  save 
himself  the  trouble  of  quitting ;  but  to  Adams  all  was  pure  loss.  On 
that  side,  his  education  had  been  finished  at  school.  His  friends  in  power 
were  lost,  and  he  knew  life  too  well  to  risk  total  wreck  by  trying  to 
save  them. 

As  far  as  concerned  Roosevelt,  the  chance  was  hopeless.  To  them  at 
sixty-three,  Roosevelt  at  forty-three  could  not  be  taken  seriously  in  his  old 
character,  and  could  not  be  recovered  in  his  new  one.  Power  when  wielded 
by  abnormal  energy  is  the  most  serious  of  facts,  and  all  Roosevelt's  friends 
know  that  his  restless  and  combative  energy  was  more  than  abnormal. 
Roosevelt,  more  than  any  other  man  living  within  the  range  of  notoriety, 
showed  the  singular  primitive  quality  that  belongs  to  ultimate  matter, — the 
quality  that  mediaeval  theology  assigned  to  God, — he  was  pure  act.  With 
him  wielding  unmeasured  power  with  immeasureable  energy,  in  the  White 
House,  the  relation  of  age  to  youth, — of  teacher  to  pupil, — was  altogether 
out  of  place ;  and  no  other  was  possible.  Even  Hay's  relation  was  a  false 
one,  while  Adams's  ceased  of  itself.  History's  truths  are  little  valuable 
now ;  but  human  nature  retains  a  few  of  its  archaic,  proverbial  laws, 
and  the  wisest  courtier  that  ever  lived, — Lucius  Seneca  himself, — must 
have  remained  in  some  shade  of  doubt  what  advantage  he  should  get 
from  the  power  of  his  friend  and  pupil  Nero  Claudius,  until,  as  a 
gentleman  past  sixty,  he  received  Nero's  filial  invitation  to  kill  himself. 
Seneca  closed  the  vast  circle  of  his  knowledge  by  learning  that  a  friend 
in  power  was  a  friend  lost, — a  fact  very  much  worth  insisting  upon, — 
while  the  gray-headed  moth  that  had  fluttered  through  many  moth- 
administrations  and  had  singed  his  wings  more  or  less  in  them  all, 
though  he  now  slept  nine  months  out  of  the  twelve,  acquired  an  instinct 


366  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

of  self-preservation  that  kept  him  to  the  north  side  of  La  Fayette  Square, 
and,  after  a  sufficient  habitude  of  Presidents  and  Senators,  deterred  him 
from  hovering  between  them. 

Those  who  seek  education  in  the  paths  of  duty  are  always  deceived 
by  the  illusion  that  power  in  the  hands  of  friends  is  an  advantage 
to  them.  As  far  as  Adams  could  teach  experience,  he  was  bound  to  warn 
them  that  he  had  found  it  an  invariable  disaster.  Power  is  poison. 
Its  effect  on  Presidents  had  been  always  tragic,  chiefly  as  an  almost 
insane  excitement  at  first,  and  a  worse  reaction  afterwards ;  but  also 
because  no  mind  is  so  well-balanced  as  to  bear  the  strain  of  seizing 
unlimited  force  without  habit  or  knowledge  of  it ;  and  finding  it  dis 
puted  with  him  by  hungry  packs  of  wolves  and  hounds  whose  lives 
depend  on  snatching  the  carrion.  Roosevelt  enjoyed  a  singularly  direct 
nature  and  honest  intent,  but  he  lived  naturally  in  restless  agitation 
that  would  have  worn  out  most  tempers  in  a  month,  and  his  first  year  of 
Presidency  showed  chronic  excitement  that  made  a  friend  tremble.  The 
effect  of  unlimited  power  on  limited  mind  is  worth  noting  in  Presidents 
because  it  must  represent  the  same  process  in  society,  and  the  power  of 
self-control  must  have  limit  somewhere  in  face  of  the  control  of  the 
infinite. 

Here,  education  seemed  to  see  its  first  and  last  lesson,  but  this  is  a 
matter  of  psychology  which  lies  far  down  in  the  depths  of  history  and 
of  science ;  it  will  recur  in  other  forms.  The  personal  lesson  is  different. 
Roosevelt  was  lost,  but  this  seemed  no  reason  why  Hay  and  Lodge 
should  also  be  lost,  yet  the  result  was  mathematically  certain.  With  Hay, 
it  was  only  the  steady  decline  of  strength,  and  the  necessary  economy  of 
force ;  but  with  Lodge  it  was  law  of  politics.  He  could  not  help  him 
self,  for  his  position  as  the  President's  friend  and  independent  statesman 
at  once  was  false,  and  he  must  be  unsure  in  both  relations. 

To  a  student,  the  importance  of  Cabot  Lodge  was  great, — much 
greater  than  that  of  the  usual  Senator, — but  it  hung  on  his  position 
in  Massachusetts  rather  than  on  his  control  of  Executive  patronage ;  and 
his  standing  in  Massachusetts  was  highly  insecure.  Nowhere  in  America 
was  society  so  complex  or  change  so  rapid.  No  doubt  the  Bostonian 
had  always  been  noted  for  a  certain  chronic  irritability, — a  sort  of 
Bostonitis,  —  which,  in  its  primitive  puritan  forms  seemed  due  to 


THE  HEIGHT  OF  KNOWLEDGE  367 

knowing  too  much  of  his  neighbors,  and  thinking  too  much  of  himself. 
Many  years  earlier  "William  M.  Evarts  had  pointed  out  to  Adams  the 
impossibility  of  uniting  New  England  behind  a  New  England  leader. 
The  trait  led  to  good  ends, — such  as  admiration  of  Abraham  Lincoln 
and  George  Washington, — but  the  virtue  was  exacting ;  for  New  Eng 
land  standards  were  various,  scarcely  reconcileable  with  each  other,  and 
constantly  multiplying  in  number,  until  balance  between  them  threatened 
to  become  impossible.  The  old  ones  were  quite  difficult  enough : — 
State  Street  and  the  Banks  exacted  one  stamp ;  the  old  congregational 
clergy  another ;  Harvard  College,  poor  in  votes,  but  rich  in  social 
influence,  a  third  ;  the  foreign  element,  especially  the  Irish,  held  aloof, 
and  seldom  consented  to  approve  anyone ;  the  new  socialist  class,  rapidly 
growing,  promised  to  become  more  exclusive  than  the  Irish.  New  power 
was  disintegrating  society,  and  setting  independent  centres  of  force  to 
work,  until  money  had  all  it  could  do  to  hold  the  machine  together.  No 
one  could  represent  it  faithfully  as  a  whole. 

Naturally,  Adams's  sympathies  lay  strongly  with  Lodge,  but  the 
task  of  appreciation  was  much  more  difficult  in  his  case  than  in  that  of 
his  chief  friend  and  scholar,  the  President.  As  a  type  for  study,  or  a 
standard  for  education,  Lodge  was  the  more  interesting  of  the  two. 
Roosevelts  are  born  and  never  can  be  taught ;  but  Lodge  was  a  creature 
of  teaching, — Boston  incarnate, — the  child  of  his  local  parentage ;  and 
while  his  ambition  led  him  to  be  more,  the  intent,  though  virtuous,  was, 
— as  Adams  admitted  in  his  own  case, — restless.  An  excellent  talker,  a 
voracious  reader,  a  ready  wit,  an  accomplished  orator,  with  a  clear  mind 
and  a  powerful  memory,  he  could  never  feel  perfectly  at  ease  whatever 
leg  he  stood  on,  but  shifted,  sometimes  with  painful  strain  of  temper, 
from  one  sensitive  muscle  to  another,  uncertain  whether  to  pose  as  an 
uncompromising  Yankee ;  or  a  pure  American  ;  or  a  patriot  in  the  still 
purer  atmosphere  of  Irish,  Germans  or  Jews ;  or  a  scholar  and  historian 
of  Harvard  College.  English  to  the  last  fibre  of  his  thought, — saturated 
with  English  literature,  English  tradition,  English  taste, — revolted  by 
every  vice  and  by  most  virtues  of  Frenchmen  and  Germans,  or  any 
other  continental  standards,  but  at  home  and  happy  among  the  vices  and 
extravagances  of  Shakespeare ;  —  standing  first  on  the  social,  then  on  the 
political  foot ;  now  worshipping,  now  banning ;  shocked  by  the  wanton 


368  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

display  of  immorality,  but  practising  the  license  of  political  usage ; 
sometimes  bitter,  often  genial,  always  intelligent ;  Lodge  had  the  singular 
merit  of  interesting.  The  usual  statesman  flocked  in  swarms  like  crows, 
black  and  monotonous.  Lodge's  plumage  was  varied,  and,  like  his  flight, 
harked  back  to  race.  He  betrayed  the  consciousness  that  he  and  his 
people  had  a  past,  if  they  dared  but  avow  it,  and  might  have  a  future, 
if  they  could  but  divine  it. 

Adams  too  was  Bostonian,  and  the  Bostonian's  uncertainty  of  attitude 
was  as  natural  to  him  as  to  Lodge.  Only  Bostonians  can  understand 
Bostonians  and  thoroughly  sympathise  with  the  inconsequences  of  the 
Boston  mind.  His  theory  and  practice  were  also  at  variance.  He 
professed  in  theory  equal  distrust  of  English  thought,  and  called  it 
a  huge  rag-bag  of  bric-a-brac,  sometimes  precious  but  never  sure.  For 
him,  only  the  Greek,  the  Italian  or  the  French  standards  had  claims 
to  respect,  and  the  barbarism  of  Shakespeare  was  as  flagrant  as  to 
Voltaire ;  but  his  theory  never  affected  his  practice.  He  knew  that  his 
artistic  standard  was  the  illusion  of  his  own  mind ;  that  English  disorder 
approached  nearer  to  truth,  if  truth  existed,  than  French  measure  or 
Italian  line,  or  German  logic ;  he  read  his  Shakespeare  as  the  Evangel 
of  conservative  Christian  anarchy,  neither  very  conservative  nor  very 
Christian,  but  stupendously  anarchistic.  He  loved  the  atrocities  of 
English  art  and  society,  as  he  loved  Charles  Dickens  and  Miss  Austen, 
not  because  of  their  example,  but  because  of  their  humor.  He  made  no 
scruple  of  defying  sequence  and  denying  consistency, — but  he  was  not  a 
Senator. 

Double  standards  are  inspiration  to  men  of  letters,  but  they  are 
apt  to  be  fatal  to  politicians.  Adams  had  no  reason  to  care  whether 
his  standards  were  popular  or  not,  and  no  one  else  cared  more  than 
he ;  but  Koosevelt  and  Lodge  were  playing  a  game  in  which  they  were 
always  liable  to  find  the  shifty  sands  of  American  opinion  yield  suddenly 
under  their  feet.  With  this  game  an  elderly  friend  had  long  before 
carried  acquaintance  as  far  as  he  wished.  There  was  nothing  in  it 
for  him  but  the  amusement  of  the  pugilist  or  acrobat.  The  larger 
study  was  lost  in  the  division  of  interests  and  the  ambitions  of  fifth- 
rate  men ;  but  foreign  affairs  dealt  only  with  large  units,  and  made 
personal  relation  possible  with  Hay  which  could  not  be  maintained 


THE  HEIGHT  OF  KNOWLEDGE  369 

with  Roosevelt  or  Lodge.  As  an  affair  of  pure  education  the  point 
is  worth  notice  from  young  men  who  are  drawn  into  politics.  The 
work  of  domestic  progress  is  done  by  masses  of  mechanical  power, — steam, 
electric,  furnace  or  other, — which  have  to  be  controlled  by  a  score  or 
two  of  individuals  who  have  shown  capacity  to  manage  it.  The  work 
of  internal  government  has  become  the  task  of  controlling  these  men,  who 
are  socially  as  remote  as  heathen  gods,  alone  worth  knowing,  but  never 
known,  and  who  could  tell  nothing  of  political  value  if  one  skinned 
them  alive.  Most  of  them  have  nothing  to  tell,  but  are  forces  as  dumb 
as  their  dynamos,  absorbed  in  the  development  or  economy  of  power. 
They  are  trustees  for  the  public,  and  whenever  society  assumes  the 
property,  it  must  confer  on  them  that  title;  but  the  power  will  remain 
as  before,  whoever  manages  it,  and  will  then  control  society  without 
appeal,  as  it  controls  its  stokers  and  pit-men.  Modern  politics  is,  at 
bottom,  a  struggle  not  of  men  but  of  forces.  The  men  become  every 
year  more  and  more  creatures  of  force,  massed  about  central  power 
houses.  The  conflict  is  no  longer  between  the  men,  but  between  the 
motors  that  drive  the  men,  and  the  men  tend  to  succumb  to  their 
own  motive  forces. 

This  is  a  moral  that  man  strongly  objects  to  admit,  especially  in 
mediaeval  pursuits  like  politics  and  poetry,  nor  is  it  worth  while  for 
a  teacher  to  insist  upon  it.  What  he  insists  upon  is  only  that,  in 
domestic  politics,  everyone  works  for  an  immediate  object,  commonly 
for  some  private  job,  and  invariably  in  a  near  horizon,  while  in  foreign 
affairs  the  outlook  is  far  ahead,  over  a  field  as  wide  as  the  world. 
There  the  merest  scholar  could  see  what  he  was  doing.  For  history, 
international  relations  are  the  only  sure  standards  of  movement ;  the 
only  foundation  for  a  map.  For  this  reason,  Adams  had  always  in 
sisted  that  international  relation  was  the  only  sure  base  for  a  chart 
of  history. 

He  cared  little  to  convince  anyone  of  the  correctness  of  his  view, 
but  as  teacher  he  was  bound  to  explain  it,  and  as  friend  he  found  it 
convenient.  The  Secretary  of  State  has  always  stood  as  much  alone  as 
the  historian.  Required  to  look  far  ahead  and  round  him,  he  measures 
forces  unknown  to  party-managers,  and  has  found  Congress  more  or 
less  hostile  ever  since  Congress  first  sat.  The  Secretary  of  State  exists 
24 


370  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

only  to  recognise  the  existence  of  a  world  which  Congress  would  rather 
ignore; — of  obligations  which  Congress  repudiates  whenever  it  can;  — 
of  bargains  which  Congress  distrusts  and  tries  to  turn  to  its  advantage 
or  to  reject.  Since  the  first  day  the  Senate  existed,  it  has  always 
intrigued  against  the  Secretary  of  State  whenever  the  Secretary  has  been 
obliged  to  extend  his  functions  beyond  the  appointment  of  Consuls  in 
senators'  service. 

This  is  a  matter  of  history  which  anyone  may  approve  or  dispute 
as  he  will ;  but  as  education  it  gave  new  resources  to  an  old  scholar,  for 
it  made  of  Hay  the  best  schoolmaster  since  1865.  Hay  had  become  the 
most  imposing  figure  ever  known  in  the  office.  He  had  an  influence 
that  no  other  Secretary  of  State  ever  possessed,  as  he  had  a  nation 
behind  him  such  as  history  had  never  imagined.  He  needed  to  write 
no  state-papers ;  he  wanted  no  help,  and  he  stood  far  above  counsel  or 
advice  ;  but  he  could  instruct  an  attentive  scholar  as  no  other  teacher  in 
the  world  could  do ;  and  Adams  sought  only  instruction, — wanted  only 
to  chart  the  international  channel  for  fifty  years  to  come ;  to  triangulate 
the  future ;  to  obtain  his  dimension,  and  fix  the  acceleration  of  move 
ment  in  politics  since  the  year  1200,  as  he  was  trying  to  fix  it  in 
philosophy  and  physics ;  in  finance  and  force. 

Hay  had  been  so  long  at  the  head  of  foreign  affairs  that  at  last 
the  stream  of  events  favored  him.  With  infinite  effort  he  had 
achieved  the  astonishing  diplomatic  feat  of  inducing  the  Senate,  with 
only  six  negative  votes,  to  permit  Great  Britain  to  renounce,  without 
equivalent,  treaty-rights  which  she  had  for  fifty  years  defended  tooth 
and  nail.  This  unprecedented  triumph  in  his  negotiations  with  the 
Senate  enabled  him  to  carry  one  step  further  his  measures  for  general 
peace.  About  England  the  Senate  could  make  no  further  effective 
opposition,  for  England  was  won,  and  Canada  alone  could  give  trouble. 
The  next  difficulty  was  with  France,  and  there  the  Senate  blocked 
advance,  but  England  assumed  the  task,  and,  owing  to  political  changes 
in  France,  effected  the  object, — a  combination  which,  as  late  as  1901, 
had  been  visionary.  The  next,  and  far  more  difficult  step,  was  to  bring 
Germany  into  the  combine ;  while,  at  the  end  of  the  vista,  most 
unmanageable  of  all,  Russia  remained  to  be  satisfied  and  disarmed. 
This  was  the  instinct  of  what  might  be  named  McKinley-ism ;  the 


THE  HEIGHT  OF  KNOWLEDGE  371 

system  of  combinations,  consolidations,  trusts,  realised  at  home,  and 
realisable  abroad. 

With  the  system,  a  student  nurtured  in  ideas  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  had  nothing  to  do,  and  made  not  the  least  pretence  of  meddling ; 
but  nothing  forbade  him  to  study,  and  he  noticed  to  his  astonishment 
that  this  capitalistic  scheme  of  combining  governments,  like  railways  or 
furnaces,  was  in  effect  precisely  the  socialist  scheme  of  Jaurez  and 
Bebel.  That  John  Hay,  of  all  men,  should  adopt  a  socialist  policy 
seemed  an  idea  more  absurd  than  conservative  Christian  anarchy,  but 
paradox  had  become  the  only  orthodoxy  in  politics  as  in  science. 
When  one  saw  the  field,  one  realised  that  Hay  could  not  help  himself, 
nor  could  Bebel.  Either  Germany  must  destroy  England  and  France 
to  create  the  next  inevitable  unification  as  a  system  of  continent  against 
continent, — or  she  must  pool  interests.  Both  schemes  in  turn  were 
attributed  to  the  Kaiser;  one  or  the  other  he  would  have  to  choose; 
opinion  was  balanced  doubtfully  on  their  merits ;  but,  granting  both  to 
be  feasible,  Hay's  and  McKinley's  statesmanship  turned  on  the  point 
of  persuading  the  Kaiser  to  join  what  might  be  called  the  Coal-power 
combination,  rather  than  build  up  the  only  possible  alternative,  a  Gun- 
power  combination  by  merging  Germany  in  Russia.  Thus  Bebel  and 
Jaurez,  McKinley  and  Hay,  were  partners. 

The  problem  was  pretty, — even  fascinating, — and,  to  an  old  civil-war 
private-soldier  in  diplomacy,  as  vigorous  as  a  geometrical  demonstration. 
As  the  last  possible  lesson  in  life,  it  had  all  sorts  of  ultimate  values. 
Unless  education  marches  on  both  feet, — theory  and  practice, — it  risks 
going  astray  ;  and  Hay  was  probably  the  most  accomplished  master  of 
both  then  living.  He  knew  not  only  the  forces  but  also  the  men,  and 
he  had  no  other  thought  than  his  policy. 

Probably  this  was  the  moment  of  highest  knowledge  that  a  scholar 
could  ever  reach.  He  had  under  his  eyes  the  whole  educational  staff 
of  the  government  at  a  time  when  the  government  had  just  reached  the 
heights  of  highest  activity  and  influence.  Since  1860,  education  had 
done  its  worst,  under  the  greatest  masters  and  at  enormous  expense  to 
the  world,  to  train  these  two  minds  to  catch  and  comprehend  every 
spring  of  international  action,  not  to  speak  of  personal  influence ;  and 
the  entire  machinery  of  politics  in  several  great  countries  had  little  to 


372  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

do  but  supply  the  last  and  best  information.     Education  could  be  carried 
no  further. 

With  its  effects  on  Hay,  Adams  had  nothing  to  do ;  but  its  effects 
on  himself  were  grotesque.  Never  had  the  proportions  of  his  ignorance 
looked  so  appalling.  He  seemed  to  know  nothing,  —  to  be  groping  in 
darkness, — to  be  falling  forever  in  space ;  and  the  worst  depth  consisted 
in  the  assurance,  incredible  as  it  seemed,  that  no  one  knew  more.  He 
had  at  least,  the  mechanical  assurance  of  certain  values  to  guide  him, 
— like  the  relative  intensities  of  his  Coal-powers,  and  relative  inertia  of 
his  Gun-powers, — but  he  conceived  that  had  he  known,  besides  the 
mechanics,  every  relative  value  of  persons,  as  well  as  he  knew  the  inmost 
thoughts  of  his  own  government,  —  had  the  Tsar  and  the  Kaiser  and  the 
Mikado  turned  school-masters,  like  Hay,  and  taught  him  all  they  knew, 
he  would  still  have  known  nothing.  They  knew  nothing  themselves. 
Only  by  comparison  of  their  ignorance  could  the  student  measure  his  own. 


CHAPTEK    XXIX 
1902 

The  years  hurried  past,  and  gave  hardly  time  to  note  their  work. 
Three  or  four  months,  though  big  with  change,  come  to  an  end  before 
the  mind  can  catch  up  with  it.  Winter  vanished ;  spring  burst  into 
flower ;  and  again  Paris  opened  its  arms,  though  not  for  long.  Mr. 
Cameron  came  over,  and  took  the  castle  of  Inverlochy  for  three  months, 
which  he  summoned  his  friends  to  garrison.  Lochaber  seldom  laughs, 
except  for  its  children,  such  as  Camerons,  McDonalds,  Campbells,  and 
other  products  of  the  mist;  but  in  the  summer  of  1902  Scotland  put 
on  fewer  airs  of  coquetry  than  usual.  Since  the  terrible  harvest  of 
1879  which  one  had  watched  sprouting  on  its  stalks  on  the  Shropshire 
hill-sides,  nothing  had  equalled  the  gloom.  Even  when  the  victims 
fled  to  Switzerland,  they  found  the  Lake  of  Geneva  and  the  Rhine 
not  much  gayer,  and  Carlsruhe  no  more  restful  than  Paris ;  until  at 
last,  in  desperation,  one  drifted  back  to  the  Avenue  of  the  Bois  de 
Boulogne,  and,  like  the  cuckoo,  dropped  into  the  nest  of  a  better 
citizen.  Diplomacy  has  its  uses.  Reynolds  Hitt,  transferred  to  Berlin, 
abandoned  his  attic  to  Adams,  and  there,  for  long  summers  to  come, 
he  hid  in  ignorance  and  silence. 

Life  at  last  managed  of  its  own  accord  to  settle  itself  into  a 
working  arrangement.  After  so  many  years  of  effort  to  find  one's  drift, 
the  drift  found  the  seeker,  and  slowly  swept  him  forward  and  back, 
with  a  steady  progress  oceanwards.  Such  lessons  as  summer  taught, 
winter  tested,  and  one  had  only  to  watch  the  apparent  movement  of 
the  stars  in  order  to  guess  one's  declination.  The  process  is  possible 
only  for  men  who  have  exhausted  auto-motion.  Adams  never  knew 

373 


374  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

why,  knowing  nothing  of  Faraday,  he  began  to  mimic  Faraday's  trick 
of  seeing  lines  of  force  all  about  him,  where  he  had  always  seen  lines 
of  will.  Perhaps  the  effect  of  knowing  no  mathematics  is  to  leave  the 
mind  to  imagine  figures, — images, — phantoms ;  one's  mind  is  a  watery 
mirror  at  best;  but,  once  conceived,  the  image  became  rapidly  simple, 
and  the  lines  of  force  presented  themselves  as  lines  of  attraction. 
Repulsions  counted  only  as  battle  of  attractions.  By  this  path,  the 
mind  stepped  into  the  mechanical  theory  of  the  universe  before 
knowing  it,  and  entered  a  distinct  new  phase  of  education. 

This  was  the  work  of  the  dynamo  and  the  Virgin  of  Chartres. 
Like  his  masters,  since  thought  began,  he  was  handicapped  by  the 
eternal  mystery  of  Force, — the  sink  of  all  science.  For  thousands  of 
years  in  history,  he  found  that  Force  had  been  felt  as  occult  attrac 
tion, — love  of  God  and  lust  for  power  in  a  future  life.  After  1500, 
when  this  attraction  began  to  decline,  philosophers  fell  back  on  some 
vis  a  tergo, — instinct  of  danger  from  behind,  like  Darwin's  survival  of 
the  fittest ;  — and  one  of  the  greatest  minds,  between  Descartes  and 
Newton, — Pascal, — saw  the  master-motor  of  man  in  ennui,  which  was 
also  scientific : — "  I  have  often  said  that  all  the  troubles  of  man  come 
from  his  not  knowing  how  to  sit  still."  Mere  restlessness  forces  action. 
"So  passes  the  whole  of  life.  We  combat  obstacles  in  order  to  get 
repose,  and,  when  got,  the  repose  is  insupportable ;  for  we  think  either 
of  the  troubles  we  have,  or  of  those  that  threaten  us ;  and  even  if 
we  felt  safe  on  every  side,  ennui  would  of  its  own  accord  spring  up 
from  the  depths  of  the  heart  where  it  is  rooted  by  nature,  and  would 
fill  the  mind  with  its  venom." 

'If  goodness  lead  him  not,  yet  weariness 
May  toss  him  to  My  breast.' 

Ennui,  like  Natural  Selection,  accounted  for  change  but  failed  to 
account  for  direction  of  change.  For  that,  an  attractive  force  was 
absolutely  essential ;  a  force  from  outside ;  a  shaping  influence.  Pascal 
and  all  the  old  philosophies  called  this  outside  force  God  or  Gods. 
Caring  but  little  for  the  name,  and  fixed  only  on  tracing  the  Force, 
Adams  had  gone  straight  to  the  Virgin  at  Chartres,  and  asked  her 


THE  ABYSS  OF  IGNORANCE  375 

to  show  him  God,  face  to  face,  as  she  did  for  St.  Bernard.  She 
replied,  kindly  as  ever,  as  though  she  were  still  the  young  mother 
of  to-day,  with  a  sort  of  patient  pity  for  masculine  dulness : — "  My 
dear  outcast,  what  is  it  you  seek?  This  is  the  Church  of  Christ! 
If  you  seek  him  through  me,  you  are  welcome,  sinner  or  saint ;  but 
he  and  I  are  one.  We  are  Love !  We  have  little  or  nothing  to  do 
with  God's  other  energies  which  are  infinite,  and  concern  us  the  less 
because  our  interest  is  only  in  man,  and  the  infinite  is  not  knowable 
to  man.  Yet  if  you  are  troubled  by  your  ignorance,  you  see  how  I 
am  surrounded  by  the  masters  of  the  Schools !  Ask  them ! " 

The  answer  sounded  singularly  like  the  usual  answer  of  British 
science  which  had  repeated  since  Bacon  that  one  must  not  try  to  know 
the  unknowable  though  one  was  quite  powerless  to  ignore  it ;  but  the 
Virgin  carried  more  conviction,  for  her  feminine  lack  of  interest  in  all 
perfections  except  her  own  was  honester  than  the  formal  phrase  of  science ; 
since  nothing  was  easier  than  to  follow  her  advice,  and  turn  to  Thomas 
Aquinas,  who,  unlike  modern  physicists,  answered  at  once  and  plainly : 
—  "To  me,"  said  St.  Thomas,  "Christ  and  the  Mother  are  one  Force, — 
Love, — simple,  single,  and  sufficient  for  all  human  wants;  but  Love  is  a 
human  interest  which  acts  even  on  man  so  partially  that  you  and  I,  as 
philosophers,  need  expect  no  share  in  it.  Therefore  we  turn  to  Christ 
and  the  Schools  who  represent  all  other  Force.  We  deal  with  Multi 
plicity  and  call  it  God.  After  the  Virgin  has  redeemed  by  her  personal 
Force  as  Love  all  that  is  redeemable  in  man,  the  Schools  embrace  the 
rest,  and  give  it  Form,  Unity  and  Motive." 

This  chart  of  Force  was  more  easily  studied  than  any  other  possible 
scheme,  for  one  had  but  to  do  what  the  Church  was  always  promising 
to  do, — abolish  in  one  flash  of  lightning  not  only  man,  but  also  the 
Church  itself,  the  earth,  the  other  planets,  and  the  sun,  in  order  to  clear 
the  air ;  without  affecting  mediaeval  science.  The  student  felt  warranted 
in  doing  what  the  Church  threatened, — abolishing  his  solar  system 
altogether, — in  order  to  look  at  God  as  actual; — continuous  movement, 
universal  cause,  and  interchangeable  force.  This  was  Pantheism,  but 
the  Schools  were  pantheist ;  at  least  as  pantheistic  as  the  Energetik  of 
the  Germans;  and  their  deity  was  the  ultimate  energy,  whose  thought 
and  act  were  one. 


376  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

Rid  of  man  and  his  mind,  the  universe  of  Thomas  Aquinas  seemed 
rather  more  scientific  than  that  of  Haeckel  or  Ernst  Mach.  Contradiction 
for  contradiction,  Attraction  for  attraction,  Energy  for  energy,  Saint 
Thomas's  God  had  merits.  Modern  science  offered  not  a  vestige  of  proof, 
or  a  theory  of  connection  between  its  forces,  or  any  scheme  of  reconcilia 
tion  between  thought  and  mechanics ;  while  Saint  Thomas  at  least  linked 
together  the  joints  of  his  machine.  As  far  as  a  superficial  student 
could  follow,  the  thirteenth  century  supposed  mind  to  be  a  mode  of 
force  directly  derived  from  the  intelligent  prime  motor,  and  the  cause 
of  all  form  and  sequence  in  the  universe, — therefore  the  only  proof  of 
unity.  Without  thought  in  the  unit,  there  could  be  no  unity ;  without 
unity  no  orderly  sequence  or  ordered  society.  Thought  alone  was  Form. 
Mind  and  Unity  flourished  or  perished  together. 

This  education  startled  even  a  man  who  had  dabbled  in  fifty 
educations  all  over  the  world ;  for,  if  he  were  obliged  to  insist  on  a 
Universe,  he  seemed  driven  to  the  Church.  Modern  science  guaranteed 
no  unity.  The  student  seemed  to  feel  himself,  like  all  his  predecessors, 
caught,  trapped,  meshed  in  this  eternal  drag-net  of  religion. 

In  practice  the  student  escapes  this  dilemma  in  two  ways : — the 
first  is  that  of  ignoring  it,  as  one  escapes  most  dilemmas; — the  second 
is  that  the  Church  rejects  pantheism  as  worse  than  atheism,  and  will 
have  nothing  to  do  with  the  pantheist  at  any  price.  In  wandering 
through  the  forests  of  ignorance,  one  necessarily  fell  upon  the  famous 
old  bear  that  scared  children  at  play ;  but,  even  had  the  animal  shown 
more  logic  than  its  victim,  one  had  learned  from  Socrates  to  distrust, 
above  all  other  traps,  the  trap  of  logic, — the  mirror  of  the  mind.  Yet 
the  search  for  a  unit  of  force  led  into  catacombs  of  thought  where 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  educations  had  found  their  end.  Generation 
after  generation  of  painful  and  honest-minded  scholars  had  been  content 
to  stay  in  these  labyrinths  forever,  pursuing  ignorance  in  silence,  in 
company  with  the  most  famous  teachers  of  all  time.  Not  one  of  them 
had  ever  found  a  logical  highroad  of  escape. 

Adams  cared  little  whether  he  escaped  or  not,  but  he  felt  clear 
that  he  could  not  stop  there,  even  to  enjoy  the  society  of  Spinoza  and 
Thomas  Aquinas.  True,  the  Church  alone  had  asserted  unity  with  any 
conviction,  and  the  historian  alone  knew  what  oceans  of  blood  and 


THE  ABYSS  OF  IGNOKANCE  377 

treasure  the  assertion  had  cost;  but  the  only  honest  alternative  to 
affirming  unity  was  to  deny  it ;  and  the  denial  would  require  a  new 
education.  At  sixty-five  years  old  a  new  education  promised  hardly 
more  than  the  old. 

Possibly  the  modern  legislator  or  magistrate  might  no  longer  know 
enough  to  treat  as  the  Church  did  the  man  who  denied  unity,  unless 
the  denial  took  the  form  of  a  bomb ;  but  no  teacher  would  know  how 
to  explain  what  he  thought  he  meant  by  denying  unity.  Society  would 
certainly  punish  the  denial  if  ever  anyone  learned  enough  to  understand 
it.  Philosophers,  as  a  rule,  cared  little  what  principles  society  affirmed 
or  denied,  since  the  philosopher  commonly  held  that  though  he  might 
sometimes  be  right  by  good-luck  on  some  one  point,  no  complex  of 
individual  opinions  could  possibly  be  anything  but  wrong;  yet,  supposing 
society  to  be  ignored,  the  philosopher  was  no  further  forward.  Nihilism 
had  no  bottom.  For  thousands  of  years  every  philosopher  had  stood  on 
the  shore  of  this  sunless  sea,  diving  for  pearls  and  never  finding  them. 
All  had  seen  that,  since  they  could  not  find  bottom,  they  must  assume 
it.  The  church  claimed  to  have  found  it,  but,  since  1450,  motives  for 
agreeing  on  some  new  assumption  of  Unity,  broader  and  deeper  than 
that  of  the  Church,  had  doubled  in  force  until  even  the  Universities  and 
Schools,  like  the  Church  and  State,  seemed  about  to  be  driven  into  an 
attempt  to  educate,  though  specially  forbidden  to  do  it. 

Like  most  of  his  generation,  Adams  had  taken  the  word  of  science 
that  the  new  unit  was  as  good  as  found.  It  would  not  be  an  intelligence, 
— probably  not  even  a  consciousness, — but  it  would  serve.  He  passed 
sixty  years  waiting  for  it,  and  at  the  end  of  that  time,  on  reviewing  the 
ground,  he  was  led  to  think  that  the  final  synthesis  of  science  and  its 
ultimate  triumph  was  the  kinetic  theory  of  gases ;  which  seemed  to  cover 
all  motion  in  space,  and  to  furnish  the  measure  of  time.  So  far  as  he 
understood  it,  the  theory  asserted  that  any  portion  of  space  is  occupied 
by  molecules  of  gas,  flying  in  right  lines  at  velocities  varying  up  to  a 
mile  in  a  second,  and  colliding  with  each  other  at  intervals  varying  up 
to  17,750,000  times  in  a  second.  To  this  analysis — if  one  understood  it 
right, — all  matter  whatever  was  reducible,  and  the  only  difference  of 
opinion  in  science  regarded  the  doubt  whether  a  still  deeper  analysis 
would  reduce  the  atom  of  gas  to  pure  motion. 


378  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

Thus,  unless  one  mistook  the  meaning  of  motion,  which  might 
well  be,  the  scientific  synthesis  commonly  called  unity  was  the  scientific 
analysis  commonly  called  multiplicity.  The  two  things  were  the  same, 
all  forms  being  shifting  phases  of  motion.  Granting  this  ocean  of 
colliding  atoms,  the  last  hope  of  humanity,  what  happened  if  one 
dropped  the  sounder  into  the  abyss, — let  it  go, — frankly  gave  up  unity 
altogether  ?  What  was  unity  ?  Why  was  one  to  be  forced  to  affirm  it  ? 

Here  everybody  flatly  refused  help.  Science  seemed  content  with  its 
old  phrase  of  "  larger  synthesis "  which  was  well  enough  for  science,  but 
meant  chaos  for  man.  One  would  have  been  glad  to  stop  and  ask  no 
more,  but  the  anarchist  bomb  bade  one  go  on,  and  the  bomb  is  a 
powerful  persuader.  One  could  not  stop,  even  to  enjoy  the  charms  of  a 
perfect  gas  colliding  seventeen  million  times  in  a  second,  much  like  an 
automobile  in  Paris.  Science  itself  had  been  crowded  so  close  to  the 
edge  of  the  abyss  that  its  attempts  to  escape  were  as  metaphysical  as  the 
leap,  while  an  ignorant  old  man  felt  no  motive  for  trying  to  escape, 
seeing  that  the  only  escape  possible  lay  in  the  form  of  vis  a  tergo 
commonly  called  death.  He  got  out  his  Descartes  again ;  dipped  into 
his  Hume  and  Berkeley ;  wrestled  anew  with  his  Kant ;  pondered 
solemnly  over  his  Hegel  and  Schopenhauer  and  Hartmann ;  strayed  gaily 
away  with  his  Greeks, — all  merely  to  ask  what  Unity  meant,  and  what 
happened  when  one  denied  it. 

Apparently  one  never  denied  it.  Every  Philosopher,  whether  sane 
or  insane,  naturally  affirmed  it.  The  utmost  flight  of  anarchy  seemed  to 
have  stopped  with  the  assertion  of  two  principles,  and  even  these  fitted 
into  each  other,  like  good  and  evil,  light  and  darkness.  Pessimism 
itself,  black  as  it  might  be  painted,  had  been  content  to  turn  the 
universe  of  contradictions  into  the  human  thought  as  one  Will,  and 
treat  it  as  representation.  Metaphysics  insisted  on  treating  the  universe 
as  one  thought,  or  treating  thought  as  one  universe ;  and  philosophers 
agreed,  like  a  kinetic  gas,  that  the  universe  could  be  known  only  as 
motion  of  mind,  and  therefore  as  unity.  One  could  know  it  only  as 
oneself;  it  was  psychology. 

Of  all  forms  of  pessimism,  the  metaphysical  form  was,  for  a 
historian,  the  least  enticing.  Of  all  studies,  the  one  he  would  rather 
have  avoided  was  that  of  his  own  mind.  He  knew  no  tragedy  so  heart- 


THE  ABYSS  OF  IGNOKANCE  379 

rending  as  introspection,  and  the  more,  because,  —  as  Mephistopheles 
said  of  Marguerite,  —  he  was  not  the  first.  Nearly  all  the  highest 
intelligence  known  to  history  had  drowned  itself  in  the  reflection  of  its 
own  thought,  and  the  bovine  survivors  had  rudely  told  the  truth  about 
it,  without  affecting  the  intelligent.  One's  own  time  had  not  been 
exempt.  Even  since  1870  friends  by  scores  had  fallen  victims  to  it. 
Within  five-and-twenty  years,  a  new  library  had  grown  out  of  it. 
Harvard  College  was  a  focus  of  the  study ;  France  supported  hospitals 
for  it ;  England  published  magazines  of  it.  Nothing  was  easier  than  to 
take  one's  mind  in  one's  hand,  and  ask  one's  psychological  friends  what 
they  made  of  it,  and  the  more  because  it  mattered  so  little  to  either 
party,  since  their  minds,  whatever  they  were,  had  pretty  nearly  ceased 
to  reflect,  and  let  them  do  what  they  liked  with  the  small  remnant,  they 
could  scarcely  do  anything  very  new  with  it.  All  one  asked  was  to 
learn  what  they  hoped  to  do. 

Unfortunately  the  pursuit  of  ignorance  in  silence  had,  by  this  time, 
led  the  weary  pilgrim  into  such  mountains  of  ignorance  that  he  could 
no  longer  see  any  path  whatever,  and  could  not  even  understand  a  sign 
post.  He  failed  to  fathom  the  depths  of  the  new  psychology,  which 
proved  to  him  that,  on  that  side  as  on  the  mathematical  side,  his  power 
of  thought  was  atrophied,  if,  indeed,  it  ever  existed.  Since  he  could 
not  fathom  the  science,  he  could  only  ask  the  simplest  of  questions :  — 
Did  the  new  psychology  hold  that  the  •fyvxn, —  soul  or  mind,  —  was  or 
was  not  a  unit  ?  He  gathered  from  the  books  that  the  psychologists  had, 
in  a  few  cases,  distinguished  several  personalities  in  the  same  mind, 
each  conscious  and  constant,  individual  and  exclusive.  The  fact  seemed 
scarcely  surprising,  since  it  had  been  a  habit  of  mind  from  earliest  recorded 
time,  and  equally  familiar  to  the  last  acquaintance  who  had  taken  a 
drug  or  caught  a  fever,  or  eaten  a  Welsh  rarebit  before  bed ;  for  surely 
no  one  could  follow  the  action  of  a  vivid  dream,  and  still  need  to  be 
told  that  the  actors  evoked  by  his  mind  were  not  himself,  but  quite 
unknown  to  all  he  had  ever  recognised  as  self.  The  new  psychology 
went  further,  and  seemed  convinced  that  it  had  actually  split  personality 
not  only  into  dualism  but  also  into  complex  groups,  like  telephonic  centres 
and  systems,  that  might  be  isolated  and  called  up  at  will,  and  whose 
physical  action  might  be  occult  in  the  sense  of  strangeness  to  any  known 


380  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENKY  ADAMS 

form  of  force.  Dualism  seemed  to  have  become  as  common  as  binary 
stars.  Alternating  personalities  turned  up  constantly,  even  among  one's 
friends.  The  facts  seemed  certain,  or  at  least  as  certain  as  other  facts ; 
all  they  needed  was  explanation. 

This  was  not  the  business  of  the  searcher  of  ignorance,  who  felt 
himself  in  no  way  responsible  for  causes.  To  his  mind,  the  compound 
~*lrvx*i  took  at  once  the  form  of  a  bicycle-rider,  mechanically  balancing 
himself  by  inhibiting  all  his  inferior  personalities,  and  sure  to  fall  into 
the  sub-conscious  chaos  below,  if  one  of  his  inferior  personalities  got  on 
top.  The  only  absolute  truth  was  the  sub-conscious  chaos  below,  which 
everyone  could  feel  when  he  sought  it. 

Whether  the  psychologists  admitted  it  or  not,  mattered  little  to  the 
student  who,  by  the  law  of  his  profession,  was  engaged  in  studying  his 
own  mind.  On  him,  the  effect  was  surprising.  He  woke  up  with  a 
shudder  as  though  he  had  himself  fallen  off  his  bicycle.  If  his  mind 
were  really  this  sort  of  magnet,  mechanically  dispersing  its  lines  of  force 
when  it  went  to  sleep,  and  mechanically  orienting  them  when  it  woke 
up, — which  was  normal,  the  dispersion  or  orientation?  The  mind,  like 
the  body,  kept  its  unity  unless  it  happened  to  lose  balance,  but  the  pro 
fessor  of  physics,  who  slipped  on  a  pavement  and  hurt  himself,  knew 
no  more  than  an  idiot  what  knocked  him  down,  though  he  did  know, 
— what  the  idiot  could  hardly  do, — that  his  normal  condition  was  idiocy, 
or  want  of  balance,  and  that  his  sanity  was  unstable  artifice.  His  normal 
thought  was  dispersion,  sleep,  dream,  inconsequence ;  the  simultaneous 
action  of  different  thought-centres  without  central  control.  His  artificial 
balance  was  acquired  habit.  He  was  an  acrobat,  with  a  dwarf  on  his 
back,  crossing  a  chasm  on  a  slack-rope,  and  commonly  breaking  his  neck. 

By  that  path  of  newest  science,  one  saw  no  unity  ahead, — nothing 
but  a  dissolving  mind, — and  the  historian  felt  himself  driven  back  on 
thought  as  one  continuous  Force,  without  Race,  Sex,  School,  Country  or 
Church.  This  has  been  always  the  fate  of  rigorous  thinkers,  and  has 
always  succeeded  in  making  them  famous,  as  it  did  Gibbon,  Buckle 
and  Auguste  Comte.  Their  method  made  what  progress  the  science  of 
history  knew,  which  was  little  enough,  but  they  did  at  last  fix  the 
law  that,  if  history  ever  meant  to  correct  the  errors  she  made  in 
detail,  she  must  agree  on  a  scale  for  the  whole.  Every  local  historian 


THE  ABYSS  OF  IGNORANCE  381 

might  defy  this  law  till  history  ended,  but  its  necessity  would  be  the 
same  for  man  as  for  space  or  time  or  force,  and  without  it  the  historian 
would  always  remain  a  child  in  science. 

Any  schoolboy  could  see  that  man  as  a  force  must  be  measured 
by  motion,  from  a  fixed  point.  Psychology  helped  here  by  suggesting 
a  unit,  —  the  point  of  history  when  man  held  the  highest  idea  of 
himself  as  a  unit  in  a  unified  universe.  Eight  or  ten  years  of  study 
had  led  Adams  to  think  he  might  use  the  century  1150-1250,  expressed 
in  Amiens  Cathedral  and  the  works  of  Thomas  Aquinas,  as  the  unit 
from  which  he  might  measure  motion  down  to  his  own  time,  without 
assuming  anything  as  true  or  untrue,  except  relation.  The  movement 
might  be  studied  at  once  in  philosophy  and  mechanics.  Setting  himself 
to  the  task,  he  began  a  volume  which  he  mentally  knew  as  "  Mont 
Saint  Michel  and  Chartres :  a  study  of  thirteenth-century  unity."  From 
that  point  he  proposed  to  fix  a  position  for  himself,  which  he  could 
label :  "  The  Education  of  Henry  Adams :  a  study  of  twentieth-century 
multiplicity."  With  the  help  of  these  two  points  of  relation,  he  hoped  to 
project  his  lines  forward  and  backward  indefinitely,  subject  to  correction 
from  anyone  who  should  know  better.  Thereupon,  he  sailed  for  home. 


CHAPTER    XXX 

1903 

Washington  was  always  amusing,  but  in  1900,  as  in  1800  its 
chief  interest  lay  in  its  distance  from  New  York.  The  movement  of 
New  York  had  become  planetary, — beyond  control, — while  the  task  of 
Washington,  in  1900  as  in  1800,  was  to  control  it.  The  success  of 
Washington  in  the  past  century  promised  ill  for  its  success  in  the  next. 

To  a  student  who  had  passed  the  best  years  of  his  life  in  pondering 
over  the  political  philosophy  of  Jefferson,  Gallatin  and  Madison,  the 
problem  that  Roosevelt  took  in  hand  seemed  alive  with  historical 
interest,  but  it  would  need  at  least  another  half-century  to  show  its 
results.  As  yet,  one  could  not  measure  the  forces  or  their  arrangement ; 
the  forces  had  not  even  aligned  themselves  except  in  foreign  affairs ;  and 
there  one  turned  to  seek  the  channel  of  wisdom  as  naturally  as  though 
Washington  did  not  exist.  The  President  could  do  nothing  effectual  in 
foreign  affairs,  but  at  least  he  could  see  something  of  the  field. 

Hay  had  reached  the  summit  of  his  career,  and  saw  himself  on  the 
edge  of  wreck.  Committed  to  the  task  of  keeping  China  "  open,"  he 
saw  China  about  to  be  shut.  Almost  alone  in  the  world,  he  represented 
the  "  open  door,"  and  could  not  escape  being  crushed  by  it.  Yet  luck 
had  been  with  him  in  full  tide.  Though  Sir  Julian  Pauncefote  had 
died  in  May,  1902,  after  carrying  out  tasks  that  filled  an  ex-private 
secretary  of  1861  with  openmouthed  astonishment,  Hay  had  been  helped 
by  the  appointment  of  Michael  Herbert  as  his  successor,  who  counted 
for  double  the  value  of  an  ordinary  diplomate.  To  reduce  friction  is  the 
chief  use  of  friendship,  and  in  politics  the  loss  by  friction  is  outrageous. 
To  Herbert  and  his  wife,  the  small  knot  of  houses  that  seemed  to  give 
382 


VIS  INERTIAS  383 

a  vague  unity  to  foreign  affairs  opened  their  doors  and  their  hearts,  for 
the  Herberts  were  already  at  home  there ;  and  this  personal  sympathy 
prolonged  Hay's  life,  for  it  not  only  eased  the  effort  of  endurance,  but 
it  also  led  directly  to  a  revolution  in  Germany.  Down  to  that  moment, 
the  Kaiser,  rightly  or  wrongly,  had  counted  as  the  ally  of  the  Tsar  in 
all  matters  relating  to  the  east.  Holleben  and  Cassini  were  taken  to  be 
a  single  force  in  eastern  affairs,  and  this  supposed  alliance  gave  Hay  no 
little  anxiety  and  some  trouble.  Suddenly  Holleben,  who  seemed  to 
have  had  no  thought  but  to  obey  with  almost  agonised  anxiety  the  least 
hint  of  the  Kaiser's  will,  received  a  telegram  ordering  him  to  pretext 
illness  and  come  home,  which  he  obeyed  within  four-and-twenty  hours. 
The  ways  of  the  German  Foreign  Office  had  been  always  abrupt,  not  to 
say  ruthless,  towards  its  agents,  and  yet  commonly  some  discontent  had 
been  shown  as  excuse ;  but,  in  this  case,  no  cause  was  guessed  for 
Holleben's  disgrace  except  the  Kaiser's  wish  to  have  a  personal  repre 
sentative  at  Washington.  Breaking  down  all  precedent,  he  sent  Speck 
Sternburg  to  counterbalance  Herbert. 

Welcome  as  Speck  was  in  the  same  social  intimacy,  and  valuable  as 
his  presence  was  to  Hay,  the  personal  gain  was  trifling  compared  with 
the  political.  Of  Hay's  official  tasks,  one  knew  no  more  than  any  news 
paper  reporter  did,  but  of  one's  own  diplomatic  education  the  successive 
steps  had  become  strides.  The  scholar  was  studying  not  on  Hay's 
account  but  on  his  own.  He  had  seen  Hay,  in  1898,  bring  England 
into  his  combine ;  he  had  seen  the  steady  movement  which  was  to  bring 
France  back  into  an  Atlantic  system ;  and  now  he  saw  suddenly  the 
dramatic  swing  of  Germany  towards  the  west,  —  the  movement  of  all 
others  nearest  mathematical  certainty.  Whether  the  Kaiser  meant  it  or 
not,  he  gave  the  effect  of  meaning  to  assert  his  independence  of  Russia, 
and  to  Hay  this  change  of  front  had  enormous  value.  The  least  was 
that  it  seemed  to  isolate  Cassini,  and  unmask  the  Russian  movement 
which  became  more  threatening  every  month  as  the  Manchurian  scheme 
had  to  be  revealed. 

Of  course  the  student  saw  whole  continents  of  study  opened  to  him 
by  the  Kaiser's  coup  d'etat.  Carefully  as  he  had  tried  to  follow  the 
Kaiser's  career,  he  had  never  suspected  such  refinement  of  policy,  which 
raised  his  opinion  of  the  Kaiser's  ability  to  the  highest  point,  and 


384  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

altogether  upset  the  center  of  statesmanship.  That  Germany  could  be 
so  quickly  detached  from  separate  objects  and  brought  into  an  Atlantic 
system  seemed  a  paradox  more  paradoxical  than  any  that  one's  education 
had  yet  offered,  though  it  had  offered  little  but  paradox.  If  Germany 
could  be  held  there,  a  century  of  friction  would  be  saved.  No  price 
would  be  too  great  for  such  an  object;  although  no  price  could  probably 
be  wrung  out  of  Congress  as  equivalent  for  it.  The  Kaiser,  by  one 
personal  act  of  energy,  freed  Hay's  hands  so  completely  that  he  saw  his 
problems  simplified  to  Russia  alone. 

Naturally  Russia  was  a  problem  ten  times  as  difficult.  The  history 
of  Europe  for  two  hundred  years  had  accomplished  little  but  to  state 
one  or  two  sides  of  the  Russian  problem.  One's  year  of  Berlin  in  youth, 
though  it  taught  no  Civil  Law,  had  opened  one's  eyes  to  the  Russian 
enigma,  and  both  German  and  French  historians  had  labored  over  its 
proportions  with  a  sort  of  fascinated  horror.  Germany,  of  all  countries, 
was  most  vitally  concerned  in  it ;  but  even  a  cave-dweller  in  La  Fayette 
Square,  seeking  only  a  measure  of  motion  since  the  Crusades,  saw  before 
his  eyes,  in  the  spring  of  1903,  a  survey  of  future  order  or  anarchy 
that  would  exhaust  the  power  of  his  telescopes  and  defy  the  accuracy 
of  his  theodolites. 

The  drama  had  become  passionately  interesting  and  grew  every  day 
more  Byzantine;  for  the  Russian  government  itself  showed  clear  signs  of 
dislocation,  and  the  orders  of  Lamsdorf  and  de  Witte  were  reversed  when 
applied  in  Manchuria.  Historians  and  students  should  have  no  sympa 
thies  or  antipathies,  but  Adams  had  private  reasons  for  wishing  well  to 
the  Tsar  and  his  people.  At  much  length,  in  several  labored  chapters 
of  history,  he  had  told  how  the  personal  friendliness  of  the  Tsar 
Alexander  I,  in  1810,  saved  the  fortunes  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  and  opened 
to  him  the  brilliant  diplomatic  career  that  ended  in  the  White  House. 
Even  in  his  own  effaced  existence  he  had  reasons,  not  altogether  trivial, 
for  gratitude  to  the  Tsar  Alexander  II,  whose  firm  neutrality  had  saved 
him  some  terribly  anxious  days  and  nights  in  1862 ;  while  he  had  seen 
enough  of  Russia  to  sympathise  warmly  with  Prince  Khilkoff's  railways 
and  de  Witte's  industries.  The  last  and  highest  triumph  of  history 
would,  to  his  mind,  be  the  bringing  of  Russia  into  the  Atlantic  combine, 
and  the  just  and  fair  allotment  of  the  whole  world  among  the  regulated 


VIS  INERTIAE  385 

activities  of  the  universe.  At  the  rate  of  unification  since  1840,  this  end 
should  be  possible  within  another  sixty  years ;  and,  in  foresight  of  that 
point,  Adams  could  already  finish — provisionally — his  chart  of  international 
unity  ;  but,  for  the  moment,  the  gravest  doubts  and  ignorance  covered  the 
whole  field.  No  one — Tsar  or  diplomate,  Kaiser  or  Mikado, — seemed  to 
know  anything.  Through  individual  Russians  one  could  always  see 
with  ease,  for  their  diplomacy  never  suggested  depth ;  and  perhaps  Hay 
protected  Cassini  for  the  very  reason  that  Cassini  could  not  disguise  an 
emotion,  and  never  failed  to  betray  that,  in  setting  the  enormous  bulk 
of  Russian  inertia  to  roll  over  China,  he  regretted  infinitely  that  he 
should  have  to  roll  it  over  Hay  too.  He  would  almost  rather  have 
rolled  it  over  de  Witte  and  Lamsdorf.  His  political  philosophy,  like  that 
of  all  Russians,  seemed  fixed  in  the  single  idea  that  Russia  must  fatally 
roll, — must  by  her  irresistible  inertia,  crush  whatever  stood  in  her  way. 

For  Hay  and  his  pooling  policy  inherited  from  McKinley,  the 
fatalism  of  Russian  inertia  meant  the  failure  of  American  intensity. 
When  Russia  rolled  over  a  neighboring  people,  she  absorbed  their 
energies  in  her  own  movement  of  custom  and  race  which  neither  Tsar 
nor  peasant  could  convert,  or  wished  to  convert  into  any  western  equiva 
lent.  In  1903,  Hay  saw  Russia  knocking  away  the  last  blocks  that 
held  back  the  launch  of  this  huge  mass  into  the  China  sea.  The  vast 
force  of  inertia  known  as  China  was  to  be  united  with  the  huge  bulk 
of  Russia  in  a  single  mass  which  no  amount  of  new  force  could 
henceforward  deflect.  Had  the  Russian  government,  with  the  sharpest 
sense  of  enlightenment,  employed  scores  of  de  Wittes  and  Khilkoffs, 
and  borrowed  all  the  resources  of  Europe,  it  could  not  have  lifted  such 
a  weight;  and  had  no  idea  of  trying. 

These  were  the  positions  charted  on  the  map  of  political  unity 
by  an  insect  in  Washington  in  the  spring  of  1903 ;  and  they  seemed 
to  him  fixed.  Russia  held  Europe  and  America  in  her  grasp,  and 
Cassini  held  Hay  in  his.  The  Siberian  railway  offered  checkmate  to 
all  possible  opposition.  Japan  must  make  the  best  terms  she  could ; 
England  must  go  on  receding ;  America  and  Germany  would  look  on 
at  the  avalanche.  The  wall  of  Russian  inertia  that  barred  Europe 
across  the  Baltic,  would  bar  America  across  the  Pacific ;  and  Hay's 
policy  of  the  open  door  would  infallibly  fail. 
25 


386  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

Thus  the  game  seemed  lost,  in  spite  of  the  Kaiser's  brilliant  stroke, 
and  the  movement  of  Russia  eastward  must  drag  Germany  after  it  by 
its  mere  mass.  To  the  humble  student,  the  loss  of  Hay's  game  affected 
only  Hay;  for  himself,  the  game,  —  not  the  stakes,  —  was  the  chief 
interest ;  and  though  want  of  habit  made  him  object  to  read  his  news 
papers  blackened,  —  since  he  liked  to  blacken  them  himself,  —  he  was  in 
any  case  condemmed  to  pass  but  a  short  space  of  time  either  in  Siberia 
or  in  Paris,  and  could  balance  his  endless  columns  of  calculation  equally 
in  either  place.  The  figures,  not  the  facts,  concerned  his  chart,  and  he 
mused  deeply  over  his  next  equation.  The  Atlantic  would  have  to 
deal  with  a  vast  continental  mass  of  inert  motion,  like  a  glacier,  which 
moved,  and  consciously  moved,  by  mechanical  gravitation  alone.  Russia 
saw  herself  so,  and  so  must  an  American  see  her ;  he  had  no  more 
to  do  than  measure,  if  he  could,  the  mass.  Was  volume  or  intensity 
the  stronger  ?  What  and  where  was  the  vis  nova  that  could  hold  its 
own  before  this  prodigious  ice-cap  of  vis  inertice^  What  was  movement 
of  inertia,  and  what  its  laws? 

Naturally  a  student  knew  nothing  about  mechanical  laws,  but  he 
took  for  granted  that  he  could  learn,  and  went  to  his  books  to  ask.  He 
found  that  the  force  of  inertia  had  troubled  wiser  men  than  he.  The 
dictionary  said  that  inertia  was  a  property  of  matter,  by  which  matter 
tends,  when  at  rest,  to  remain  so,  and,  when  in  motion,  to  move  on  in 
a  straight  line.  Finding  that  his  mind  refused  to  imagine  itself  at  rest 
or  in  a  straight  line,  he  was  forced,  as  usual,  to  let  it  imagine  something 
else;  and  since  the  question  concerned  the  mind,  and  not  matter,  he 
decided  from  personal  experience  that  his  mind  was  never  at  rest,  but 
moved, — when  normal,  —  about  something  it  called  a  motive,  and  never 
moved  without  motives  to  move  it.  So  long  as  these  motives  were  habitual, 
and  their  attraction  regular,  the  consequent  result  might,  for  convenience, 
be  called  movement  of  inertia,  to  distinguish  it  from  movement  caused 
by  newer  or  higher  attraction ;  but  the  greater  the  bulk  to  move,  the 
greater  must  be  the  force  to  accelerate  or  deflect  it. 

This  seemed  simple  as  running  water ;  but  simplicity  is  the  most 
deceitful  mistress  that  ever  betrayed  man.  For  years  the  student  and 
the  professor  had  gone  on  complaining  that  minds  were  unequally  inert. 
The  inequalities  amounted  to  contrasts.  One  class  of  minds  responded 


VIS  INERTIAE  387 

only  to  habit ;  another  only  to  novelty.  Race  classified  thought.  Class- 
lists  classified  mind.  No  two  men  thought  alike,  and  no  woman 
thought  like  a  man. 

Race-inertia  seemed  to  be  fairly  constant,  and  made  the  chief  trouble 
in  the  Russian  future.  History  looked  doubtful  when  asked  whether 
race-inertia  had  ever  been  overcome  without  destroying  the  race  in  order  to 
reconstruct  it ;  but  surely  sex-inertia  had  never  been  overcome  at  all. 
Of  all  movements  of  inertia,  maternity  and  reproduction  are  the  most 
typical,  and  women's  property  of  moving  in  a  constant  line  forever  is 
ultimate,  uniting  history  in  its  only  unbroken  and  unbreakable  sequence. 
Whatever  else  stops,  the  woman  must  go  on  reproducing,  as  she  did  in  the 
Siluria  of  Pteraspis ;  sex  is  a  vital  condition,  and  race  only  a  local  one. 
If  the  laws  of  inertia  are  to  be  sought  anywhere  with  certainty,  it  is  in 
the  feminine  mind.  The  American  always  ostentatiously  ignored  sex, 
and  American  history  mentioned  hardly  the  name  of  a  woman,  while 
English  history  handled  them  as  timidly  as  though  they  were  a  new  and 
undescribed  species ;  but  if  the  problem  of  inertia  summed  up  the  difficulties 
of  the  race  question,  it  involved  that  of  sex  far  more  deeply,  and  to 
Americans  vitally.  The  task  of  accelerating  or  deflecting  the  movement 
of  the  American  woman  had  interest  infinitely  greater  than  that  of  any 
race  whatever,  Russian  or  Chinese,  Asiatic  or  African. 

On  this  subject,  as  on  the  Senate  and  the  Banks,  Adams  was 
conscious  of  having  been  born  an  eighteenth-century  remainder.  As  he 
grew  older,  he  found  that  Early  Institutions  lost  their  interest,  but  that 
Early  Women  became  a  passion.  Without  understanding  movement  of 
sex,  history  seemed  to  him  mere  pedantry.  So  insistant  had  he  become 
on  this  side  of  his  subject  that  with  women  he  talked  of  little  else, 
and  —  because  women's  thought  is  mostly  sub-conscious  and  particularly 
sensitive  to  suggestion,  —  he  tried  tricks  and  devices  to  disclose  it.  The 
woman  seldom  knows  her  owii  thought;  she  is  as  curious  to  understand 
herself  as  the  man  to  understand  her,  and  responds  far  more  quickly 
than  the  man  to  a  sudden  idea.  Sometimes,  at  dinner,  one  might  wait 
till  talk  flagged,  and  then,  as  mildly  as  possible,  ask  one's  liveliest 
neighbor  whether  she  could  explain  why  the  American  woman  was  a 
failure.  Without  an  instant's  hesitation,  she  was  sure  to  answer :  — 
"  Because  the  American  man  is  a  failure ! "  She  meant  it. 


388  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

Adams  owed  more  to  the  American  woman  than  to  all  the  American 
men  he  ever  heard  of,  and  felt  not  the  smallest  call  to  defend  his  sex 
who  seemed  able  to  take  care  of  themselves ;  but  from  the  point  of  view 
of  sex  he  felt  much  curiosity  to  know  how  far  the  woman  was  right, 
and,  in  pursuing  this  inquiry,  he  caught  the  trick  of  affirming  that  the 
woman  was  the  superior.  Apart  from  truth,  he  owed  her  at  least  that 
compliment.  The  habit  led  sometimes  to  perilous  personalities  in  the 
sudden  give-and-take  of  table-talk.  This  spring,  just  before  sailing  for 
Europe  in  May,  1903,  he  had  a  message  from  his  sister-in-law,  Mrs, 
Brooks  Adams,  to  say  that  she  and  her  sister,  Mrs.  Lodge,  and  the 
Senator  were  coming  to  dinner  by  way  of  farewell ;  Bay  Lodge  and  his 
lovely  young  wife  sent  word  to  the  same  effect ;  Mrs.  Roosevelt  joined 
the  party ;  and  Michael  Herbert  shyly  slipped  down  to  escape  the 
solitude  of  his  wife's  absence.  The  party  were  too  intimate  for  reserve, 
and  they  soon  fell  on  Adams's  hobby  with  derision  which  stung  him  to 
pungent  rejoinder :  — "  The  American  man  is  a  failure !  You  are  all 
failures ! "  he  said ;  "  Has  not  my  sister  here  more  sense  than  my 
brother  Brooks  ?  Is  not  Bessie  worth  two  of  Bay  ?  Wouldn't  we  all 
elect  Mrs.  Lodge  senator  against  Cabot?  Would  the  President  have  a 
ghost  of  a  chance  if  Mrs.  Roosevelt  ran  against  him  ?  Do  you  want  to 
stop  at  the  Embassy,  on  your  way  home,  and  ask  which  would  run  it 
best  —  Herbert  or  his  wife?"  The  men  laughed  a  little,  —  not  much! 
Each  probably  made  allowance  for  his  own  wife  as  an  unusually  superior 
woman.  Some  one  afterwards  remarked  that  these  half-dozen  women 
were  not  a  fair  average.  Adams  replied  that  the  half-dozen  men  were 
above  all  possible  average ;  he  could  not  lay  his  hands  on  another  half- 
dozen  their  equals. 

Gay  or  serious,  the  question  never  failed  to  stir  feeling.  The 
cleverer  the  woman,  the  less  she  denied  the  failure.  She  was  bitter  at 
heart  about  it.  She  had  failed  even  to  hold  the  family  together,  and 
her  children  ran  away  like  chickens  with  their  first  feathers ;  the  family 
was  extinct  like  chivalry.  She  had  failed  not  only  to  create  a  new 
society  that  satisfied  her,  but  even  to  hold  her  own  in  the  old  society  of 
Church  or  State ;  and  was  left,  for  the  most  part,  with  no  place  but  the 
theatre  or  streets  to  decorate.  She  might  glitter  with  historical  diamonds 
and  sparkle  with  wit  as  brilliant  as  the  gems,  in  rooms  as  splendid  as 


VIS  INERTIAE  389 

any  in  Rome  at  its  best ;  but  she  saw  no  one  except  her  own  sex  who 
knew  enough  to  be  worth  dazzling,  or  was  competent  to  pay  her  intelli 
gent  homage.  She  might  have  her  own  way,  without  restraint  or  limit, 
but  she  knew  not  what  to  do  with  herself  when  free.  Never  had  the 
world  known  a  more  capable  or  devoted  mother,  but  at  forty  her  task 
was  over,  and  she  was  left  with  no  stage  except  that  of  her  old  duties, 
or  of  Washington  society  where  she  had  enjoyed  for  a  hundred  years 
every  advantage,  but  had  created  only  a  medley  where  nine  men  out 
of  ten  refused  her  request  to  be  civilised,  and  the  tenth  bored  her. 

On  most  subjects,  one's  opinions  must  defer  to  science,  but  on  this, 
the  opinion  of  a  Senator  or  a  Professor,  a  chairman  of  a  State  Central 
Committee  or  a  Railway  President,  is  worth  less  than  that  of  any  woman 
on  Fifth  Avenue.  The  inferiority  of  man  on  this,  the  most  important 
of  all  social  subjects,  is  manifest.  Adams  had  here  no  occasion  to  depre 
cate  scientific  opinion,  since  no  woman  in  the  world  would  have  paid  the 
smallest  respect  to  the  opinions  of  all  professors  since  the  serpent.  His 
own  object  had  little  to  do  with  theirs.  He  was  studying  the  laws  of 
motion,  and  had  struck  two  large  questions  of  vital  importance  to 
America : — inertia  of  race  and  inertia  of  sex.  He  had  seen  Mr.  de 
Witte  and  Prince  Khilkoff  turn  artificial  energy  to  the  value  of  three 
thousand  million  dollars,  more  or  less,  upon  Russian  inertia,  in  the  last 
twenty  years,  and  he  needed  to  get  some  idea  of  the  effects.  He  had 
seen  artificial  energy  to  the  amount  of  twenty  or  five-and-twenty  million 
steam-horse-power  created  in  America  since  1840,  and  as  much  more 
economised,  which  had  been  socially  turned  over  to  the  American  woman, 
she  being  the  chief  object  of  social  expenditure,  and  the  household  the 
only  considerable  object  of  American  extravagance.  According  to  scientific 
notions  of  inertia  and  force,  what  ought  to  be  the  result  ? 

In  Russia,  because  of  race  and  bulk,  no  result  had  yet  shown  itself, 
but  in  America  the  results  were  evident  and  undisputed.  The  woman 
had  been  set  free, — volatilised  like  Clerk  Maxwell's  perfect  gas ; — almost 
brought  to  the  point  of  explosion,  like  steam.  One  had  but  to  pass  a 
week  in  Florida,  or  on  any  of  a  hundred  huge  ocean  steamers,  or  walk 
through  the  Place  Vendome,  or  join  a  party  of  Cook's  tourists  to 
Jerusalem,  to  see  that  the  woman  had  been  set  free ;  but  these  swarms 
were  ephemeral  like  clouds  of  butterflies  in  season,  blown  away  and  lost, 
while  the  reproductive  sources  lay  hidden.  At  Washington,  one  saw 


390  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

other  swarms  as  grave  gatherings  of  Dames  or  Daughters,  taking  them 
selves  seriously,  or  brides  fluttering  fresh  pinions ;  but  all  these  shifting 
visions,  unknown  before  1840,  touched  the  true  problem  slightly  and 
superficially.  Behind  them,  in  every  city,  town  and  farmhouse,  were 
myriads  of  new  types, — or  type-writers, — telephone  and  telegraph-girls, 
shop-clerks,  factory  hands,  running  into  millions  on  millions,  and,  as 
classes,  unknown  to  themselves  as  to  historians.  Even  the  school 
mistresses  were  inarticulate.  All  these  new  women  had  been  created 
since  1840 ;  all  were  to  show  their  meaning  before  1940. 

Whatever  they  were,  they  were  not  content,  as  the  ephemera 
proved ;  and  they  were  hungry  for  illusions  as  ever  in  the  fourth  century 
of  the  Church ;  but  this  was  probably  survival,  and  gave  no  hint  of  the 
future.  The  problem  remained, — to  find  out  whether  movement  of  inertia, 
inherent  in  function,  could  take  direction  except  in  lines  of  inertia. 
This  problem  needed  to  be  solved  in  one  generation  of  American  women, 
and  was  the  most  vital  of  all  problems  of  force. 

The  American  woman  at  her  best,  —  like  most  other  women,  — 
exerted  great  charm  on  the  man,  but  not  the  charm  of  a  primitive  type. 
She  appeared  as  the  result  of  a  long  series  of  discards,  and  her  chief 
interest  lay  in  what  she  had  discarded.  When  closely  watched,  she 
seemed  making  a  violent  effort  to  follow  the  man,  who  had  turned  his 
mind  and  hand  to  mechanics.  The  typical  American  man  had  his  hand 
on  a  lever  and  his  eye  on  a  curve  in  his  road ;  his  living  depended  on 
keeping  up  an  average  speed  of  forty  miles  an  hour,  tending  always  to 
become  sixty,  eighty  or  a  hundred,  and  he  could  not  admit  emotions 
or  anxieties  or  subconscious  distractions,  more  than  he  could  admit 
whiskey  or  drugs,  without  breaking  his  neck.  He  could  not  run  his 
machine  and  a  woman  too;  he  must  leave  her,  even  though  his  wife,  to 
find  her  own  way,  and  all  the  world  saw  her  trying  to  find  her  way  by 
imitating  him. 

The  result  was  often  tragic,  but  that  was  no  new  thing  in  feminine 
history.  Tragedy  had  been  woman's  lot  since  Eve.  Her  problem  had 
been  always  one  of  physical  strength  and  it  was  as  physical  perfection 
of  force  that  her  Venus  had  governed  nature.  The  woman's  force  had 
counted  as  inertia  of  rotation,  and  her  axis  of  rotation  had  been  the 
cradle  and  the  family.  The  idea  that  she  was  weak  revolted  all  history; 
it  was  a  palffiontological  falsehood  that  even  an  Eocene  female  monkey 


VIS  INERTIAE  391 

would  have  laughed  at;  but  it  was  surely  true  that,  if  her  force  were  to 
be  diverted  from  its  axis,  it  must  find  a  new  field,  and  the  family  must 
pay  for  it.  So  far  as  she  succeeded,  she  must  become  sexless  like  the 
bees,  and  must  leave  the  old  energy  of  inertia  to  carry  on  the  race. 

The  story  was  not  new.  For  thousands  of  years  women  had  rebelled. 
They  had  made  a  fortress  of  religion,  —  had  buried  themselves  in  the 
cloister,  in  self-sacrifice,  in  good  works, — or  even  in  bad.  One's  studies 
in  the  twelfth  century,  like  one's  studies  in  the  fourth,  as  in  Homeric 
and  archaic  time,  showed  her  always  busy  in  the  illusions  of  heaven  or 
of  hell,  —  ambition,  intrigue,  jealousy,  magic,  —  but  the  American  woman 
had  no  illusions  or  ambitions  or  new  resources,  and  nothing  to  rebel 
against,  except  her  own  maternity ;  yet  the  rebels  increased  by  millions 
from  year  to  year  till  they  blocked  the  path  of  rebellion.  Even  her 
field  of  good  works  was  narrower  than  in  the  twelfth  century.  Socialism, 
communism,  collectivism,  philosophical  anarchism,  which  promised  paradise 
on  earth  for  every  male,  cut  off  the  few  avenues  of  escape  which  capital 
ism  had  opened  to  the  woman,  and  she  saw  before  her  only  the  future 
reserved  for  machine-made,  collectivist  females. 

From  the  male,  she  could  look  for  no  help ;  his  instinct  of  power 
was  blind.  The  Church  had  known  more  about  women  than  science  will 
ever  know,  and  the  historian  who  studied  the  sources  of  Christianity  felt 
sometimes  convinced  that  the  Church  had  been  made  by  the  woman 
chiefly  as  her  protest  against  man.  At  times,  the  historian  would  have 
been  almost  willing  to  maintain  that  the  man  had  overthrown  the 
Church  chiefly  because  it  was  feminine.  After  the  overthrow  of  the 
Church,  the  woman  had  no  refuge  except  such  as  the  man  created  for 
himself.  She  was  free ;  she  had  no  illusions  ;  she  was  sexless ;  she  had 
discarded  all  that  the  male  disliked ;  and  although  she  secretly  regretted 
the  discard,  she  knew  that  she  could  not  go  backward.  She  must,  like 
the  man,  marry  machinery.  Already  the  American  man  sometimes  felt 
surprise  at  finding  himself  regarded  as  sexless ;  the  American  woman 
was  oftener  surprised  at  finding  herself  regarded  as  sexual. 

No  honest  historian  can  take  part  with  —  or  against  —  the  forces 
he  has  to  study.  To  him  even  the  extinction  of  the  human  race  should 
be  merely  a  fact  to  be  grouped  with  other  vital  statistics.  No  doubt 
everyone  in  society  discussed  the  subject,  impelled  by  President  Roose 
velt  if  by  nothing  else,  and  the  surface  current  of  social  opinion  seemed 


392  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

set  as  strongly  in  one  direction  as  the  silent  undercurrent  of  social 
action  ran  -in  the  other ;  but  the  truth  lay  somewhere  unconscious  in 
the  woman's  breast.  An  elderly  man,  trying  only  to  learn  the  law  of 
social  inertia  and  the  limits  of  social  divergence  could  not  compel  the 
Superintendent  of  the  Census  to  ask  every  young  woman  whether  she 
wanted  children,  and  how  many  ;  he  could  not  even  require  of  an 
octogenarian  Senate  the  passage  of  a  law  obliging  every  woman,  married 
or  not,  to  bear  one  baby,  —  at  the  expense  of  the  Treasury,  —  before 
she  was  thirty  years  old,  under  penalty  of  solitary  confinement  for 
life ;  yet  these  were  vital  statistics  in  more  senses  than  all  that  bore 
the  name,  and  tended  more  directly  to  the  foundation  of  a  serious 
society  in  the  future.  He  could  draw  no  conclusions  whatever  except 
from  the  birthrate.  He  could  not  frankly  discuss  the  matter  with  the 
young  women  themselves,  although  they  would  have  gladly  discussed 
it,  because  Faust  was  helpless  in  the  tragedy  of  woman.  He  could 
suggest  nothing.  The  Marguerite  of  the  future  could  alone  decide 
whether  she  were  better  off  than  the  Marguerite  of  the  past ;  whether 
she  would  rather  be  victim  to  a  man,  a  church  or  a  machine. 

Between  these  various  forms  of  inevitable  inertia,  —  sex  and  race,  • — 
the  student  of  multiplicity  felt  inclined  to  admit  that,  —  ignorance 
against  ignorance,  —  the  Russian  problem  seemed  to  him  somewhat  easier 
of  treatment  than  the  American.  Inertia  of  race  and  bulk  would  require 
an  immense  force  to  overcome  it,  but  in  time  it  might  perhaps  be 
partially  overcome.  Inertia  of  sex  could  not  be  overcome  without 
extinguishing  the  race,  yet  an  immense  force,  doubling  every  few  years, 
was  working  irresistibly  to  overcome  it.  One  gazed  mute  before  this 
ocean  of  darkest  ignorance  that  had  already  engulfed  society.  Few 
centres  of  great  energy  lived  in  illusion  more  complete  or  archaic  than 
Washington  with  its  simple-minded  standards  of  the  field  and  farm,  its 
southern  and  western  habits  of  life  and  manners,  its  assumptions  of 
ethics  and  history ;  but  even  in  Washington,  society  was  uneasy  enough 
to  need  no  further  fretting.  One  was  almost  glad  to  act  the  part  of 
horseshoe  crab  in  Quincy  Bay,  and  admit  that  all  was  uniform,  —  that 
nothing  ever  changed,  —  and  that  the  woman  would  swim  about  the 
ocean  of  future  time,  as  she  had  swum  in  the  past,  with  the  gar-fish 
and  the  shark,  unable  to  change. 


CHAPTEK    XXXI 
1903 

Of  all  the  travels  made  by  man  since  the  voyages  of  Dante,  this 
new  exploration  along  the  shores  of  Multiplicity  and  Complexity  promised 
to  be  the  longest,  though  as  yet  it  had  barely  touched  two  familiar 
regions, — race  and  sex.  Even  within  these  narrow  seas  the  navigator 
lost  his  bearings  and  followed  the  winds  as  they  blew.  By  chance  it 
happened  that  Raphael  Pumpelly  helped  the  winds ;  for,  being  in 
Washington  on  his  way  to  Central  Asia  he  fell  to  talking  with  Adams 
about  these  matters,  and  said  that  Wolcott  Gibbs  thought  he  got  most 
help  from  a  book  called  the  Grammar  of  Science  by  Karl  Pearson.  To 
Adams's  vision,  Wolcott  Gibbs  stood  on  the  same  plane  with  the  three 
or  four  greatest  minds  of  his  century,  and  the  idea  that  a  •  man  so 
incomparably  superior  should  find  help  anywhere  filled  him  with  wonder. 
He  sent  for  the  volume  and  read  it.  From  the  time  he  sailed  for 
Europe  and  reached  his  den  on  the  Avenue  du  Bois  until  he  took  his 
return  steamer  at  Cherbourg  on  December  26,  he  did  little  but  try  to 
find  out  what  Karl  Pearson  could  have  taught  Wolcott  Gibbs. 

Here  came  in,  more  than  ever,  the  fatal  handicap  of  ignorance  in 
mathematics.  Not  so  much  the  actual  tool  was  needed,  as  the  right  to 
judge  the  product  of  the  tool.  Ignorant  as  one  was  of  the  finer  values 
of  French  or  German,  and  often  deceived  by  the  intricacies  of  thought 
hidden  in  the  muddiness  of  the  medium,  one  could  sometimes  catch  a 
tendency  to  intelligible  meaning  even  in  Kant  or  Hegel ;  but  one  had 
not  the  right  to  a  suspicion  of  error  where  the  tool  of  thought  was 
algebra.  Adams  could  see  in  such  parts  of  the  "  Grammar "  as  he 
could  understand,  little  more  than  an  enlargement  of  Stallo's  book 

393 


394  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

already  twenty  years  old.  As  usual,  he  was  struck  chiefly  by  the 
familiar,  crying  faults  of  the  English  mind,  chaotic  and  fragmentary  hy 
essence.  He  never  found  out  what  it  could  have  taught  a  great  master 
like  Wolcott  Gibbs,  and  for  practical  results  he  saw  no  moral  except 
the  general  English  commandment :  "  Thou  shalt  experiment !  "  Yet 
the  book  had  a  historical  value  out  of  all  proportion  to  its  science. 
No  such  stride  had  any  Englishman  ever  before  taken  in  the  lines  of 
English  thought.  The  progress  of  science  was  measured  by  the  success 
of  the  "  Grammar,"  when,  for  twenty  years  past,  Stallo  had  been 
deliberately  ignored,  and  Wolcott  Gibbs  himself  smothered  under  the 
usual  conspiracy  of  silence  inevitable  to  all  thought  which  demands  new 
thought-machinery.  Science  needs  time  to  reconstruct  its  instruments,  to 
follow  a  revolution  in  space ;  a  certain  lag  is  inevitable ;  the  most  active 
mind  cannot  instantly  swerve  from  its  path ;  but  such  revolutions  are 
portentous,  and  the  fall  or  rise  of  half-a-dozen  empires  interested  a 
student  of  history  less  than  the  rise  of  the  "  Grammar  of  Science,"  the 
more  pressingly  because,  under  the  silent  influence  of  Langley,  he  was 
prepared  to  expect  it. 

For  a  number  of  years  Langley  had  published  in  his  Smithsonian 
Reports  the  revolutionary  papers  that  foretold  the  overthrow  of  nine 
teenth-century  dogma,  and  among  the  first  was  the  famous  address  of 
Sir  William  Crookes  on  psychical  research,  followed  by  a  series  of 
papers  on  Roentgen  and  Curie,  which  had  steadily  driven  the  scientific 
lawgivers  of  Unity  into  the  open ;  but  Karl  Pearson  was  the  first  to 
pen  them  up  for  slaughter  in  the  schools.  The  phrase  is  not  stronger 
than  that  with  which  the  "Grammar  of  Science"  challenged  the  fight: — 
"  Anything  more  hopelessly  illogical  than  the  statements  with  regard  to 
Force  and  Matter  current  in  elementary  text-books  of  science,  it  is 
difficult  to  imagine,"  opened  Mr.  Pearson,  and  the  responsible  author  of 
the  "  elementary  text-book,"  as  he  went  on  to  explain,  was  Lord  Kelvin 
himself.  Pearson  shut  out  of  science  everything  which  the  nineteenth- 
century  had  brought  into  it.  He  told  his  scholars  that  they  must  put 
up  with  a  fraction  of  the  universe,  and  a  very  small  fraction  at  that, — 
the  circle  reached  by  the  senses,  where  sequence  could  be  taken  for 
granted, — much  as  the  deep-sea  fish  takes  for  granted  the  circle  of  light 
at  the  end  of  his  own  nose.  "  Order  and  reason,  beauty  and  benevolence, 


THE  GRAMMAK  OF  SCIENCE  395 

are  characteristics  and  conceptions  which  we  find  solely  associated  with  the 
mind  of  man."  The  assertion,  as  a  broad  truth,  left  one's  mind  in  some 
doubt  of  its  bearing,  for  order  and  beauty  seemed  to  be  associated  also 
in  the  mind  of  a  crystal,  if  one's  senses  were  to  be  admitted  as  judge ; 
but  the  historian  had  no  interest  in  the  universal  truth  of  Pearson's  or 
Kelvin's  or  Newton's  laws ;  he  sought  only  their  relative  drift  or  direc 
tion,  and  Pearson  went  on  to  say  that  these  conceptions  must  stop :  — 
"  Into  the  chaos  beyond  sense-impressions  we  cannot  scientifically  project 
them."  We  cannot  even  infer  them  :  —  "In  the  chaos  behind  sensations, 
in  the  '  beyond '  of  sense-impressions,  we  cannot  infer  necessity,  order  or 
routine,  for  these  are  concepts  formed  by  the  mind  of  man  on  this  side 
of  sense-impressions  "  ;  but  we  must  infer  chaos :  —  "  Briefly  chaos  is  all 
that  science  can  logically  assert  of  the  supersensuous."  The  kinetic 
theory  of  gas  is  an  assertion  of  ultimate  chaos.  In  plain  words,  Chaos 
was  the  law  of  nature ;  Order  was  the  dream  of  man. 

No  one  means  all  he  says,  and  yet  very  few  say  all  they  mean, 
for  words  are  slippery  and  thought  is  viscous ;  but  since  Bacon  and 
Newton,  English  thought  had  gone  on  impatiently  protesting  that  no 
one  must  try  to  know  the  unknowable  at  the  same  time  that  everyone 
went  on  thinking  about  it.  The  result  was  as  chaotic  as  kinetic  gas; 
but  with  the  thought  a  historian  had  nothing  to  do.  He  sought  only  its 
direction.  For  himself  he  knew,  that,  in  spite  of  all  the  Englishmen 
that  ever  lived,  he  would  be  forced  to  enter  supersensual  chaos  if  he 
meant  to  find  out  what  became  of  British  science,  —  or  indeed  of  any 
other  science.  From  Pythagoras  to  Herbert  Spencer,  everyone  had  done 
it,  although  commonly  science  had  explored  an  ocean  which  it  preferred  to 
regard  as  Unity  or  a  Universe,  and  called  Order.  Even  Hegel,  who 
taught  that  every  notion  included  its  own  negation,  used  the  negation 
only  to  reach  a  "  larger  synthesis,"  till  he  reached  the  universal  which 
thinks  itself,  contradiction  and  all.  The  Church  alone  had  constantly 
protested  that  anarchy  was  not  order,  that  Satan  was  not  God,  that 
pantheism  was  worse  than  atheism,  and  that  God  could  not  be  proved  as 
a  contradiction.  Karl  Pearson  seemed  to  agree  with  the  Church,  but 
everyone  else,  including  Newton,  Darwin  and  Clerk  Maxwell,  had  sailed 
gaily  into  the  supersensual,  calling  it :  — 


396  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

'One   God,    one  Law,    one  Element, 
And   one   far-off,    divine   event, 
To   which   the  whole   creation   moves.' 

Suddenly,  in  1900,  science  raised  its  head  and  denied. 

Yet,  perhaps,  after  all,  the  change  had  not  been  so  sudden  as  it 
seemed.  Real  and  actual,  it  certainly  was,  and  every  newspaper  betrayed 
it,  but  sequence  could  scarcely  be  denied  by  one  who  had  watched  its 
steady  approach,  thinking  the  change  far  more  interesting  to  history  than 
the  thought.  When  he  reflected  about  it,  he  recalled  that  the  flow  of 
tide  had  shown  itself  at  least  twenty  years  before ;  that  it  had  become 
marked  as  early  as  1893 ;  and  that  the  man  of  science  must  have  been 
sleepy  indeed  who  did  not  jump  from  his  chair  like  a  scared  dog  when, 
in  1898,  Madame  Curie  threw  on  his  desk  the  metaphysical  bomb  she 
called  radium.  There  remained  no  hole  to  hide  in.  Even  metaphysics 
swept  back  over  science  with  the  green  water  of  the  deep-sea  ocean  and  no 
one  could  longer  hope  to  bar  out  the  unknowable,  for  the  unknowable 
was  known. 

The  fact  was  admitted  that  the  uniformitarians  of  one's  youth  had 
wound  about  their  universe  a  tangle  of  contradictions  meant  only  for 
temporary  support  to  be  merged  in  "  larger  synthesis,"  and  had  waited 
for  the  larger  synthesis  in  silence  and  in  vain.  They  had  refused  to 
hear  Stallo.  They  had  betrayed  little  interest  in  Crookes.  At  last  their 
universe  had  been  wrecked  by  rays,  and  Karl  Pearson  undertook  to  cut 
the  wreck  loose  with  an  axe,  leaving  science  adrift  on  a  sensual  raft  in 
the  midst  of  a  supersensual  chaos.  The  confusion  seemed,  to  a  mere 
passenger,  worse  than  that  of  1600  when  the  astronomers  upset  the 
world ;  it  resembled  rather  the  convulsion  of  310  when  the  Civitas  Dei 
cut  itself  loose  from  the  Civitas  Romae,  and  the  Cross  took  the  place  of 
the  legions ;  but  the  historian  accepted  it  all  alike ;  he  knew  that  his 
opinion  was  worthless  ;  only,  in  this  case,  he  found  himself  on  the  raft, 
personally  and  economically  concerned  in  its  drift. 

English  thought  had  always  been  chaos  and  multiplicity  itself,  in 
which  the  new  step  of  Karl  Pearson  marked  only  a  consistent  progress ; 
but  German  thought  had  affected  system,  unity  and  abstract  truth,  to  a 
point  that  fretted  the  most  patient  foreigner,  and  to  Germany  the 


THE  GRAMMAR  OF  SCIENCE  397 

voyager  in  strange  seas  of  thought  alone'  might  resort  with  confident 
hope  of  renewing  his  youth.  Turning  his  back  on  Karl  Pearson  and 
England,  he  plunged  into  Germany,  and  had  scarcely  crossed  the  Rhine 
when  he  fell  into  libraries  of  new  works  bearing  the  names  of  Ostwald, 
Ernst  Mach,  Ernst  Hseckel,  and  others  less  familiar,  among  whom 
Hseckel  was  easiest  to  approach,  not  only  because  of  being  the  oldest 
and  clearest  and  steadiest  spokesman  of  nineteenth-century  mechanical 
convictions,  but  also  because  in  1902  he  had  published  a  vehement 
renewal  of  his  faith.  The  volume  contained  only  one  paragraph  that 
concerned  a  historian ;  it  was  that  in  which  Hseckel  sank  his  voice 
almost  to  a  religious  whisper  in  avowing  with  evident  effort,  that  the 
(t  proper  essence  of  substance  appeared  to  him  more  and  more  marvelous 
and  enigmatic  as  he  penetrated  further  into  the  knowledge  of  its 
attributes,  —  matter  and  energy,  —  and  as  he  learned  to  know  their 
innumerable  phenomena  and  their  evolution."  Since  Hseckel  seemed  to 
have  begun  the  voyage  into  multiplicity  that  Pearson  had  forbidden 
to  Englishmen,  he  should  have  been  a  safe  pilot  to  the  point,  at 
least,  of  a  "  proper  essence  of  substance "  in  its  attributes  of  matter 
and  energy ;  but  Ernst  Mach  seemed  to  go  yet  one  step  further,  for  he 
rejected  matter  altogether,  and  admitted  but  two  processes  in  nature,  — 
change  of  place  and  interconversion  of  forms.  Matter  was  Motion,  — 
Motion  was  Matter,  —  the  thing  moved. 

A  student  of  history  had  no  need  to  understand  the  scientific  ideas 
of  very  great  men ;  he  sought  only  the  relation  with  the  ideas  of  their 
grandfathers,  and  their  common  direction  towards  the  ideas  of  their 
grandsons.  He  had  long  ago  reached,  with  Hegel,  the  limits  of  contra 
diction  ;  and  Ernst  Mach  scarcely  added  a  shade  of  variety  to  the 
identity  of  opposites ;  but  both  of  them  seemed  to  be  in  agreement  with 
Karl  Pearson  on  the  facts  of  the  supersensual  universe  which  could  be 
known  only  as  unknowable. 

With  a  deep  sigh  of  relief,  the  traveller  turned  back  to  France. 
There  he  felt  safe.  No  Frenchman  except  Rabelais  and  Montaigne  had 
ever  taught  anarchy  other  than  as  path  to  order.  Chaos  would  be  unity 
in  Paris  even  if  child  of  the  guillotine.  To  make  this  assurance  mathe 
matically  sure,  the  highest  scientific  authority  in  France  was  a  great 
mathematician,  M.  Poincare  of  the  Institut,  who  published  in  1902  a 


398  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

small  volume  called  "  La  Science  et  1'Hypothese,"  which  purported  to 
be  relatively  readable.  Trusting  to  its  external  appearance,  the  traveller 
timidly  bought  it,  and  greedily  devoured  it,  without  understanding  a  single 
consecutive  page,  but  catching  here  and  there  a  period  that  startled  him 
to  the  depths  of  his  ignorance,  for  they  seemed  to  show  that  M.  Poincare 
was  troubled  by  the  same  historical  landmarks  which  guided  or  deluded 
Adams  himself: — "[In  science]  we  are  led,"  said  M.  Poincare,  "to  act 
as  though  a  simple  law,  when  other  things  were  equal,  must  be  more 
probable  than  a  complicated  law.  Half  a  century  ago  one  frankly 
confessed  it,  and  proclaimed  that  nature  loves  simplicity.  She  has  since 
given  us  too  often  the  lie.  To-day  this  tendency  is  no  longer  avowed, 
and  only  as  much  of  it  is  preserved  as  is  indispensable  so  that  science 
shall  not  become  impossible." 

Here  at  last  was  a  fixed  point  beyond  the  chance  of  confusion  with 
self-suggestion.  History  and  mathematics  agreed.  Had  M.  Poincare  shown 
anarchistic  tastes,  his  evidence  would  have  weighed  less  heavily;  but  he 
seemed  to  be  the  only  authority  in  science  who  felt  what  a  historian  felt 
so  strongly, — the  need  of  unity  in  a  universe. — "Considering  everything 
we  have  made  some  approach  towards  unity.  We  have  not  gone  as  fast 
as  we  hoped  fifty  years  ago ;  we  have  not  always  taken  the  intended 
road;  but  definitely  we  have  gained  much  ground."  This  was  the  most 
clear  and  convincing  evidence  of  progress  yet  offered  to  the  navigator 
of  ignorance ;  but  suddenly  he  fell  on  another  view  which  seemed  to 
him  quite  irreconcileable  with  the  first : — "  Doubtless  if  our  means  of 
investigation  should  become  more  and  more  penetrating,  we  should 
discover  the  simple  under  the  complex ;  then  the  complex  under  the 
simple ;  then  anew  the  simple  under  the  complex ;  and  so  on  without 
ever  being  able  to  foresee  the  last  term." 

A  mathematical  paradise  of  endless  displacement  promised  eternal 
bliss  to  the  mathematician,  but  turned  the  historian  green  with  horror. 
Made  miserable  by  the  thought  that  he  knew  no  mathematics,  he  burned 
to  ask  whether  M.  Poincare  knew  any  history,  since  he  began  by  beg 
ging  the  historical  question  altogether,  and  assuming  that  the  past  showed 
alternating  phases  of  simple  and  complex, — the  precise  point  that  Adams, 
after  fifty  years  of  effort,  found  himself  forced  to  surrender ;  and  then 
going  on  to  assume  alternating  phases  for  the  future  which,  for  the 


THE  GRAMMAR  OF  SCIENCE  399 

weary  Titan  of  Unity,  differed  in  nothing  essential  from  the  kinetic 
theory  of  a  perfect  gas. 

Since  monkeys  first  began  to  chatter  in  trees,  neither  man  nor  beast 
had  ever  denied  or  doubted  Multiplicity,  Diversity,  Complexity,  Anarchy, 
Chaos.  Always  and  everywhere  the  Complex  had  been  true  and  the 
Contradiction  had  been  certain.  Thought  started  by  it.  Mathematics  itself 
began  by  counting  one — two — three ;  then  imagining  their  continuity, 
which  M.  Poincare  was  still  exhausting  his  wits  to  explain  or  defend ; 
and  this  was  his  explanation :  — "  In  short,  the  mind  has  the  faculty  of 
creating  symbols,  and  it  is  thus  that  it  has  constructed  mathematical 
continuity  which  is  only  a  particular  system  of  symbols."  With  the 
same  light  touch,  more  destructive  in  its  artistic  measure  than  the 
heaviest-handed  brutality  of  Englishmen  or  Germans,  he  went  on  to  upset 
relative  truth  itself: — "How  should  I  answer  the  question  whether 
Euclidian  Geometry  is  true  ?  It  has  no  sense !  .  .  .  .  Euclidian  Geometry 
is,  and  will  remain,  the  most  convenient." 

Chaos  was  a  primary  fact  even  in  Paris — especially  in  Paris, — as  it 
was  in  the  Book  of  Genesis ;  but  every  thinking  being  in  Paris  or  out 
of  it  had  exhausted  thought  in  the  effort  to  prove  Unity,  Continuity, 
Purpose,  Order,  Law,  Truth,  the  Universe,  God,  after  having  begun  by 
taking  it  for  granted,  and  discovering,  to  their  profound  dismay,  that  some 
minds  denied  it.  The  direction  of  mind,  as  a  single  force  of  nature,  had 
been  constant  since  history  began.  Its  own  unity  had  created  a  universe 
the  essence  of  which  was  abstract  Truth ;  the  Absolute ;  God !  To 
Thomas  Aquinas,  the  universe  was  still  a  person ;  to  Spinoza,  a  substance ; 
to  Kant,  Truth  was  the  essence  of  the  "  I ; "  an  innate  conviction ;  a 
categorical  imperative ;  to  Poincare",  it  was  a  convenience ;  and  to  Karl 
Pearson,  a  medium  of  exchange. 

The  historian  never  stopped  repeating  to  himself  that  he  knew 
nothing  about  it;  that  he  was  a  mere  instrument  of  measure,  a  barometer, 
pedometer,  radiometer ;  and  that  his  whole  share  in  the  matter  was 
restricted  to  the  measurement  of  thought-motion  as  marked  by  the 
accepted  thinkers.  He  took  their  facts  for  granted.  He  knew  no  more 
about  rays  than  about  race, — or  sex, — or  ennui, — or  a  bar  of  music, — or 
a  pang  of  love,- — or  a  grain  of  musk, — or  conscience, — or  duty, — or  the 
force  of  Euclidian  geometry, — or  non-Euclidian, — or  heat, — or  light, — or 


400  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

electrolysis, — or  the  magnet, — or  ether, — or  vis  inertiae, — or  gravitation, — 
or  surface  tension, — or  capillary  attraction, — or  Brownian  motion, — or  of 
some  scores,  or  thousands,  or  millions  of  chemical  attractions,  repulsions 
or  indifferences  which  were  busy  within  and  without  him ; — or,  in  brief, 
of  Force  itself,  which,  he  was  credibly  informed,  bore  some  dozen 
definitions  in  the  text-books,  mostly  contradictory,  and  all,  as  he  was 
assured,  beyond  his  intelligence ;  but  summed  up  in  the  dictum  of  the 
last  and  highest  science,  that  Motion  seems  to  be  Matter  and  Matter 
seems  to  be  Motion,  yet  "  we  are  probably  incapable  of  discovering " 
what  either  is.  History  had  no  need  to  ask  what  either  might  be ;  all 
it  needed  to  know  was  the  admission  of  ignorance ;  the  mere  fact  of 
multiplicity  baffling  science.  Even  as  to  the  fact,  science  disputed,  but 
radium  happened  to  radiate  heat,  and  thus  exploded  the  scientific 
magazine,  bringing  thought,  for  the  time,  to  a  stand-still ;  though,  in  the 
line  of  thought-movement  in  history,  radium  was  merely  the  next 
position,  familiar  and  inexplicable  since  Zeno  and  his  arrow :  continuous 
from  the  beginning  of  time,  and  discontinuous  at  each  successive  point. 
History  set  it  down  on  the  record, — pricked  its  position  on  the  chart, — 
and  waited  to  be  led,  or  misled,  once  more. 

The  historian  must  not  try  to  know  what  is  truth,  if  he  values  his 
honesty ;  for,  if  he  cares  for  his  truths,  he  is  certain  to  falsify  his  facts. 
The  laws  of  history  only  repeat  the  lines  of  force  or  thought.  Yet 
though  his  will  be  iron,  he  cannot  help  now  and  then  resuming  his 
humanity  or  simianity  in  face  of  a  fear.  The  motion  of  thought  had 
the  same  value  as  the  motion  of  a  cannon-ball  seen  approaching  the 
observer  on  a  direct  line  through  the  air.  One  could  watch  its  curve 
for  five  thousand  years.  Its  first  violent  acceleration  in  historical  times 
had  ended  in  the  catastrophe  of  310.  The  next  swerve  of  direction 
occurred  towards  1500.  Galileo  and  Bacon  gave  a  still  newer  curve  to 
it,  which  altered  its  values ;  but  all  these  changes  had  never  altered  the 
continuity.  Only  in  1900,  the  continuity  snapped. 

Vaguely  conscious  of  the  cataclysm,  the  world  sometimes  dated  it 
from  1893,  by  the  Roentgen  rays,  or  from  1898,  by  the  Curie's  radium  ; 
but  in  1904,  Arthur  Balfour  announced  on  the  part  of  British  Science 
that  the  human  race  without  exception  had  lived  and  died  in  a  world 
of  illusion  until  the  last  year  of  the  century.  The  date  was  convenient, 
and  convenience  was  truth. 


THE  GRAMMAR  OF  SCIENCE  401 

The  child  born  in  1900  would,  then,  be  born  into  a  new  world 
which  would  not  be  a  unity  but  a  multiple.  Adams  tried  to  imagine  it, 
and  an  education  that  would  fit  it.  He  found  himself  in  a  land  where 
no  one  had  ever  penetrated  before ;  where  order  was  an  accidental 
relation  obnoxious  to  nature ;  artificial  compulsion  imposed  on  motion ; 
against  which  every  free  energy  of  the  universe  revolted ;  and  which, 
being  merely  occasional,  resolved  itself  back  into  anarchy  at  last.  He 
could  not  deny  that  the  law  of  the  new  multiverse  explained  much  that 
had  been  most  obscure,  especially  the  persistently  fiendish  treatment  of 
man  by  man ;  the  perpetual  effort  of  society  to  establish  law,  and  the 
perpetual  revolt  of  society  against  the  law  it  had  established ;  the 
perpetual  building  up  of  authority  by  force,  and  the  perpetual  appeal  to 
force  to  overthrow  it ;  the  perpetual  symbolism  of  a  higher  law,  and  the 
perpetual  relapse  to  a  lower  one;  the  perpetual  victory  of  the  principles 
of  freedom,  and  their  perpetual  conversion  into  principles  of  power;  but 
the  staggering  problem  was  the  outlook  ahead  into  a  despotism  of 
artificial  order  which  nature  abhorred.  The  physicists  had  a  phrase  for 
it,  unintelligible  to  the  vulgar:  —  "All  that  we  win  is  a  battle, — lost  in 
advance, — with  the  irreversible  phenomena  in  the  background  of  nature." 

All  that  a  historian  won  was  a  vehement  wish  to  escape.  He  saw 
his  education  complete,  and  was  sorry  he  ever  began  it.  As  a  matter  of 
taste,  he  greatly  preferred  his  eighteenth-century  education  when  God 
was  a  father  and  nature  a  mother,  and  all  was  for  the  best  in  a  scientific 
universe.  He  repudiated  all  share  in  the  world  as  it  was  to  be,  and  yet 
he  could  not  detect  the  point  where  his  responsibility  began  or  ended. 
As  history  unveiled  itself  in  the  new  order,  man's  mind  had  behaved  like 
a  young  pearl  oyster,  secreting  its  universe  to  suit  its  conditions  until  it 
had  built  up  a  shell  of  nacre  that  embodied  all  its  notions  of  the 
perfect.  Man  knew  it  was  true  because  he  made  it,  and  he  loved  it  for 
the  same  reason.  He  sacrificed  millions  of  lives  to  acquire  his  unity,  but 
he  achieved  it,  and  justly  thought  it  a  work  of  art.  The  woman 
especially  did  great  things,  creating  her  deities  on  a  higher  level  than 
the  male,  and,  in  the  end,  compelling  the  man  to  accept  the  Virgin  as 
guardian  of  the  man's  God.  The  man's  part  in  his  Universe  was 
secondary,  but  the  woman  was  at  home  there,  and  sacrificed  herself 
without  limit  to  make  it  habitable,  when  man  permitted  it,  as  sometimes 
26 


402  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENKY  ADAMS 

happened  for  brief  intervals  of  war  and  famine ;  but  she  could  not 
provide  protection  against  forces  of  nature.  She  did  not  think  of  her 
universe  as  a  raft  to  which  the  limpets  stuck  for  life  in  the  surge  of  a 
supersensual  chaos ;  she  conceived  herself  and  her  family  as  the  center 
and  flower  of  an  ordered  universe  which  she  knew  to  be  unity  because 
she  had  made  it  after  the  image  of  her  own  fecundity ;  and  this  creation 
of  hers  was  surrounded  by  beauties  and  perfections  which  she  knew 
to  be  real  because  she  herself  had  imagined  them.  Even  the  masculine 
philosopher  admired  and  loved  and  celebrated  her  triumph,  and  the 
greatest  of  them  sang  it  in  the  noblest  of  his  verses : — 

'Alma  Venus,    coeli   subter   labentia   signa 
Quae   mare  navigerum,   quae   terras   frugiferenteis 

Concelebras 

Quae   quoniam   rerum   naturam   sola   gubernas, 
Nee   sine   te   quidquam   dias   in   luminis   eras 
Exoritur,  neque   fit   laetum  neque   amabile   quidquam  ; 
Te  sociam   studeo  ! ' 

Neither  man  nor  woman  ever  wanted  to  quit  this  Eden  of  their  own 
invention,  and  could  no  more  have  done  it  of  their  own  accord  than  the 
pearl  oyster  could  quit  its  shell ;  but  although  the  oyster  might  perhaps 
assimilate  or  embalm  a  grain  of  sand  forced  into  its  aperture,  it  could 
only  perish  in  face  of  the  cyclonic  hurricane  or  the  volcanic  upheaval 
of  its  bed.  Her  supersensual  chaos  killed  her. 

Such  seemed  the  theory  of  history  to  be  imposed  by  science  on 
the  generation  born  after  1900.  For  this  theory,  Adams  felt  himself  in 
no  way  responsible.  Even  as  historian  he  had  made  it  his  duty  always 
to  speak  with  respect  of  everything  that  had  ever  been  thought  respecta 
ble, — except  an  occasional  statesman ;  — but  he  had  submitted  to  force 
all  his  life,  and  he  meant  to  accept  it  for  the  future  as  for  the  past. 
All  his  efforts  had  been  turned  only  to  the  search  for  its  channel.  He 
never  invented  his  facts ;  they  were  furnished  him  by  the  only  authorities 
he  could  find.  As  for  himself,  according  to  Helmholz,  Ernst  Mach  and 
Arthur  Balfour,  he  was  henceforth  to  be  nothing  but  a  conscious  ball  of 
vibrating  motions,  traversed  in  every  direction  by  infinite  lines  of  rotation 
or  vibration,  rolling  at  the  feet  of  the  Virgin  at  Chartres  or  of  M. 


THE  GRAMMAR  OF  SCIENCE  403 

Poincare  in  an  attic  at  Paris,  a  center  of  supersensual  chaos.  The 
discovery  did  not  distress  him.  A  solitary  man  of  sixty-five  years  or 
more,  alone  in  a  Gothic  Cathedral  or  a  Paris  apartment,  need  fret  himself 
little  about  a  few  illusions  more  or  less.  He  should  have  learned  his 
lesson  fifty  years  before.  Possibly  Galileo,  Descartes  and  Newton,  if  they 
believed  the  religious  unity  they  professed,  might  have  refused  to  go  on 
with  a  science  which  led  them  into  the  arms  of  Helmholz  and  Efeckel ; 
but  the  times  had  long  passed  when  a  student  could  stop  before  chaos 
or  order ;  he  had  no  choice  but  to  march  with  his  world. 

Nevertheless,  he  could  not  pretend  that  his  mind  felt  nattered  by 
this  scientific  outlook.  Every  fabulist  has  told  how  the  human  mind  has 
always  struggled  like  a  frightened  bird  to  escape  the  chaos  which  caged 
it.  Appearing  suddenly  and  inexplicably  out  of  some  unknown  and 
unimaginable  void ;  passing  half  its  known  life  in  the  mental  chaos  of 
sleep ;  victim  even  when  awake,  to  its  own  ill-adjustment,  to  disease,  to 
age,  to  external  suggestion,  to  nature's  compulsion;  doubting  its  sensa 
tions,  and,  in  the  last  resort,  trusting  only  to  instruments  and  averages ; 
after  sixty  or  seventy  years  of  growing  astonishment,  the  mind  wakes  to 
finds  itself  looking  blankly  into  the  void  of  death.  That  it  should  profess 
itself  pleased  by  this  performance  was  all  that  the  highest  rules  of  good 
breeding  could  ask  ;  but  that  it  should  actually  be  satisfied  would  prove 
beyond  all  possible  dispute  that  it  existed  only  as  idiocy. 

Satisfied,  the  future  generation  could  scarcely  think  itself,  for  even 
when  the  mind  existed  in  a  universe  of  its  own  creation,  it  had  never  been 
quite  at  ease.  As  far  as  one  ventured  to  interpret  actual  science,  the  mind 
had  thus  far  adjusted  itself  by  an  infinite  series  of  infinitely  delicate 
adjustments  forced  on  it  by  the  infinite  motion  of  an  infinite  chaos  of 
motion ;  dragged  at  one  moment  into  the  unknowable  and  unthinkable, 
then  trying  to  scramble  back  within  its  senses  and  to  bar  the  chaos  out, 
but  always  assimilating  bits  of  it,  until  at  last,  in  1900,  a  new  avalanche 
of  unknown  forces  had  fallen  on  it,  which  required  new  mental  powers  to 
control.  If  this  view  was  correct,  the  mind  could  gain  nothing  by  flight 
or  by  fight;  it  must  merge  in  its  supersensual  multi verse,  or  succumb 
to  it. 


CHAPTER    XXXII 

1903-1904 

Paris  after  midsummer  is  a  place  where  only  the  industrious  poor 
remain,  unless  they  can  get  away  ;  but  Adams  knew  no  spot  where  history 
would  be  better  off,  and  the  calm  of  the  Champs  Elysees  was  so  deep 
that  when  Mr.  de  Witte  was  promoted  to  a  powerless  dignity,  no  one 
whispered  that  the  promotion  was  disgrace,  while  one  might  have 
supposed,  from  the  silence,  that  the  Viceroy  Alexeieff  had  reoccupied 
Manchuria  as  a  fulfilment  of  treaty-obligation.  For  once,  the  conspiracy 
of  silence  became  crime.  Never  had  so  modern  and  so  vital  a  riddle 
been  put  before  western  society,  but  society  shut  its  eyes.  Manchuria 
knew  every  step  into  war ;  Japan  had  completed  every  preparation ; 
Alexeieff  had  collected  his  army  and  fleet  at  Port  Arthur,  mounting  his 
siege  guns  and  laying  in  enormous  stores,  ready  for  the  expected  attack ; 
from  Yokohama  to  Irkoutsk,  the  whole  east  was  under  war  conditions ; 
but  Europe  knew  nothing.  The  Banks  would  allow  no  disturbance ;  the 
press  said  not  a  word,  and  even  the  embassies  were  silent.  Every 
anarchist  in  Europe  buzzed  excitement  and  began  to  collect  in  groups, 
but  the  Hotel  Bitz  was  calm,  and  the  Grand-dukes  who  swarmed  there 
professed  to  know  directly  from  the  Winter  Palace  that  there  would  be 
no  war. 

As  usual,  Adams  felt  as  ignorant  as  the  best-informed  statesman, 
and  though  the  sense  was  familiar,  for  once  he  could  see  that  the  ignor 
ance  was  assumed.  After  nearly  fifty  years  of  experience,  he  could  not 
understand  how  the  comedy  could  be  so  well  acted.  Even  as  late  as 
November,  diplomates  were  gravely  asking  every  passer-by  for  his  opinion, 
and  avowed  none  of  their  own  except  what  was  directly  authorised  at  St. 
404 


VIS  NOVA  405 

Petersburg.  He  could  make  nothing  of  it.  He  found  himself  in  face 
of  his  new  problem, —  the  workings  of  Russian  inertia, —  and  he  could 
conceive  no  way  of  forming  an  opinion  how  much  was  real  and  how 
much  was  comedy  had  he  been  in  the  Winter  Palace  himself.  At  times 
he  doubted  whether  the  Grand-dukes  or  the  Tsar  knew,  but  old  diplo 
matic  training  forbade  him  to  admit  such  innocence. 

This  was  the  situation  at  Christmas  when  he  left  Paris.  On 
January  6,  1904,  he  reached  Washington,  where  the  contrast  of  atmos 
phere  astonished  him,  for  he  had  never  before  seen  his  country  think 
as  a  world-power.  No  doubt,  Japanese  diplomacy  had  much  to  do  with 
this  alertness,  but  the  immense  superiority  of  Japanese  diplomacy  should 
have  been  more  evident  in  Europe  than  in  America,  and  in  any  case, 
could  not  account  for  the  total  disappearance  of  Russian  diplomacy.  A 
government  by  inertia  greatly  disconcerted  study.  One  was  led  to  suspect 
that  Cassini  never  heard  from  his  government,  and  that  Lamsdorf  knew 
nothing  of  his  own  department ;  yet  no  such  suspicion  could  be  admitted. 
Cassini  resorted  to  transparent  blague : — "  Japan  seemed  infatuated  even 
to  the  point  of  war !  but  what  can  the  Japanese  do  ?  as  usual,  sit  on 
their  heels  and  pray  to  Buddha !  "  One  of  the  oldest  and  most  accom 
plished  diplomatists  in  the  service  could  never  show  his  hand  so  empty 
as  this  if  he  held  a  card  to  play ;  but  he  never  betrayed  stronger 
resource  behind.  "  If  any  Japanese  succeed  in  entering  Manchuria, 
they  will  never  get  out  of  it  alive."  The  inertia  of  Cassini,  who  was 
naturally  the  most  energetic  of  diplomatists,  deeply  interested  a  student 
of  race-inertia,  whose  mind  had  lost  itself  in  the  attempt  to  invent 
scales  of  force. 

The  air  of  official  Russia  seemed  most  dramatic  in  the  air  of  the 
White  House,  by  contrast  with  the  outspoken  candor  of  the  President. 
Reticence  had  no  place  there.  Everyone  in  America  saw  that,  whether 
Russia  or  Japan  were  victim,  one  of  the  decisive  struggles  in  American 
history  was  pending,  and  any  pretence  of  secrecy  or  indifference  was 
absurd.  Interest  was  acute,  and  curiosity  intense,  for  no  one  knew  what 
the  Russian  government  meant  or  wanted,  while  war  had  become  a 
question  of  days.  To  an  impartial  student  who  gravely  doubted  whether 
the  Tsar  himself  acted  as  a  conscious  force  or  an  inert  weight,  the 
straightforward  avowals  of  Roosevelt  had  singular  value  as  a  standard  of 


406  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

measure.  By  chance  it  happened  that  Adams  was  obliged  to  take  the 
place  of  his  brother  Brooks  at  the  Diplomatic  Reception  immediately 
after  his  return  home,  and  the  part  of  proxy  included  his  supping  at  the 
President's  table,  with  Secretary  Root  on  one  side,  the  President  opposite, 
and  Miss  Chamberlain  between  them.  Naturally  the  President  talked 
and  the  guests  listened ;  which  seemed,  to  one  who  had  just  escaped  from 
the  European  conspiracy  of  silence,  like  drawing  a  free  breath  after 
stifling.  Roosevelt,  as  everyone  knew,  was  always  an  amusing  talker, 
and  had  the  reputation  of  being  indiscreet  beyond  any  other  man  of 
great  importance  in  the  world,  except  the  Kaiser  Wilhelm  and  Mr. 
Joseph  Chamberlain,  the  father  of  his  guest  at  table ;  and  this  evening 
he  spared  none.  With  the  usual  abuse  of  the  quos  ego,  common  to 
vigorous  statesmen,  he  said  all  that  he  thought  about  Russians  and 
Japanese,  as  well  as  about  Boers  and  British,  without  restraint,  in  full 
hearing  of  twenty  people,  to  the  entire  satisfaction  of  his  listener;  and 
concluded  by  declaring  that  war  was  imminent ;  that  it  ought  to  be 
stopped;  that  it  could  be  stopped: — "I  could  do  it  myself;  I  could  stop 
it  to-morrow ! "  and  he  went  on  to  explain  his  reasons  for  restraint. 

That  he  was  right,  and  that,  within  another  generation,  his  successor 
would  do  what  he  would  have  liked  to  do,  made  no  shadow  of  doubt  in 
the  mind  of  his  hearer,  though  it  would  have  been  folly  when  he  last 
supped  at  the  White  House  in  the  dynasty  of  President  Hayes ;  but  the 
listener  cared  less  for  the  assertion  of  power,  than  for  the  vigor  of  view. 
The  truth  was  evident  enough,  ordinary,  even  commonplace  if  one  liked, 
but  it  was  not  a  truth  of  inertia,  nor  was  the  method  to  be  mistaken 
for  inert. 

Nor  could  the  force  of  Japan  be  mistaken  for  a  moment  .as  a  force 
of  inertia,  although  its  aggressive  was  taken  as  methodically, — as  mathe 
matically, — as  a  demonstration  of  Euclid,  and  Adams  thought  that  as 
against  any  but  Russians  it  would  have  lost  its  opening.  Each  day 
counted  as  a  measure  of  relative  energy  on  the  historical  scale,  and 
the  whole  story  made  a  Grammar  of  new  Science  quite  as  instructive 
as  that  of  Pearson. 

The  forces  thus  launched  were  bound  to  reach  some  new  equilibrium 
which  would  prove  the  problem  in  one  sense  or  another,  and  the  war 
had  no  personal  value  for  Adams  except  that  it  gave  Hay  his  last 


VIS  NOVA  407 

great  triumph.  He  had  carried  on  his  long  contest  with  Cassini  so 
skilfully  that  no  one  knew  enough  to  understand  the  diplomatic  perfec 
tion  of  his  work,  which  contained  no  error ;  but  such  success  is  complete 
only  when  it  is  invisible,  and  his  victory  at  last  was  victory  of  judg 
ment,  not  of  act.  He  could  do  nothing,  and  the  whole  country  would 
have  sprung  on  him  had  he  tried.  Japan  and  England  saved  his 
"open  door"  and  fought  his  battle.  All  that  remained  for  him  was  to 
make  the  peace,  and  Adams  set  his  heart  on  getting  the  peace  quickly 
in  hand,  for  Hay's  sake  as  well  as  for  that  of  Russia.  He  thought 
then  that  it  could  be  done  in  one  campaign,  for  he  knew  that,  in  a 
military  sense,  the  fall  of  Port  Arthur  must  lead  to  negotiation,  and 
everyone  felt  that  Hay  would  inevitably  direct  it ;  but  the  race  was 
close,  and  while  the  war  grew  every  day  in  proportions,  Hay's  strength 
every  day  declined. 

St.  Gaudens  came  on  to  model  his  head,  and  Sargent  painted  his 
portrait,  two  steps  essential  to  immortality  which  he  bore  with  a  certain 
degree  of  resignation,  but  he  grumbled  when  the  President  made  him 
go  to  St.  Louis  to  address  some  gathering  at  the  Exposition;  and  Mrs. 
Hay  bade  Adams  go  with  them,  for  whatever  use  he  could  suppose 
himself  to  serve.  He  professed  the  religion  of  World's  Fairs,  without 
which  he  held  education  to  be  a  blind  impossibility;  and  obeyed  Mrs. 
Hay's  bidding  the  more  readily  because  it  united  his  two  educations 
in  one;  but  theory  and  practice  were  put  to  equally  severe  test  at 
St.  Louis.  Ten  years  had  passed  since  he  last  crossed  the  Mississippi, 
and  he  found  everything  new.  In  this  great  region  from  Pittsburg 
through  Ohio  and  Indiana,  agriculture  had  made  way  for  steam ;  tall 
chimneys  reeked  smoke  on  every  horizon,  and  dirty  suburbs  filled  with 
scrap-iron,  scrap-paper  and  cinders,  formed  the  setting  of  every  town. 
Evidently,  cleanliness  was  not  to  be  the  birthmark  of  the  new  American, 
but  this  matter  of  discards  concerned  the  measure  of  force  little,  while 
the  chimneys  and  cinders  concerned  it  so  much  that  Adams  thought 
the  Secretary  of  State  should  have  rushed  to  the  platform  at  every 
station  to  ask  who  were  the  people;  for  the  American  of  the  prime 
seemed  to  be  extinct  with  the  Shawnee  and  the  buffalo. 

The  subject  grew  quickly  delicate.  History  told  little  about  these 
millions  of  Germans  and  Slavs,  or  whatever  their  race-names,  who  had 


408  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

overflowed  these  regions  as  though  the  Rhine  and  the  Danube  had  turned 
their  floods  into  the  Ohio.  John  Hay  was  as  strange  to  the  Mississippi 
river  as  though  he  had  not  been  born  on  its  shores,  and  the  city  of  St. 
Louis  had  turned  its  back  on  the  noblest  work  of  nature,  leaving  it  bank 
rupt  between  its  own  banks.  The  new  American  showed  his  parentage 
proudly ;  he  was  the  child  of  steam  and  the  brother  of  the  dynamo,  and 
already,  within  less  than  thirty  years,  this  mass  of  mixed  humanities, 
brought  together  by  steam,  was  squeezed  and  welded  into  approach  to 
shape ;  a  product  of  so  much  mechanical  power,  and  bearing  no  dis 
tinctive  marks  but  that  of  its  pressure.  The  new  American,  like  the 
new  European,  was  the  servant  of  the  power-house,  as  the  European  of 
the  twelfth  century  was  the  servant  of  the  Church,  and  the  features 
would  follow  the  parentage. 

The  St.  Louis  Exposition  was  its  first  creation  in  the  twentieth 
century,  and,  for  that  reason,  acutely  interesting.  One  saw  here  a 
third-rate  town  of  half-a-million  people  without  history,  education,  unity 
or  art,  and  with  little  capital;  —  without  even  an  element  of  natural 
interest  except  the  river  which  it  studiously  ignored ; — but  doing  what 
London,  Paris  or  New  York  would  have  shrunk  from  attempting.  This 
new  social  conglomerate,  with  no  tie  but  its  steampower  and  not  much  of 
that,  threw  away  thirty  or  forty  million  dollars  on  a  pageant  as 
ephemeral  as  a  stage  flat.  The  world  had  never  witnessed  so  marvellous 
a  phantasm ;  by  night  Arabia's  crimson  sands  had  never  returned  a 
glow  half  so  astonishing,  as  one  wandered  among  long  lines  of  white 
palaces,  exquisitely  lighted  by  thousands  on  thousands  of  electric  candles, 
soft,  rich,  shadowy,  palpable  in  their  sensuous  depths ;  all  in  deep 
silence,  profound  solitude,  listening  for  a  voice  or  a  foot-fall  or  the 
plash  of  an  oar,  as  though  the  Emir  Mirza  were  displaying  the  beauties 
of  his  City  of  Brass,  which  could  show  nothing  half  so  beautiful  as  this 
illumination,  with  its  vast,  white,  monumental  solitude,  bathed  in  the 
pure  light  of  setting  suns.  One  enjoyed  it  with  iniquitous  rapture,  not 
because  of  exhibits  but  rather  because  of  their  want.  Here  was  a 
paradox  like  the  stellar  universe  that  fitted  one's  mental  faults.  Had 
there  been  no  exhibits  at  all,  and  no  visitors,  one  would  have  enjoyed  it 
only  the  more. 

Here  education   found  new  forage.     That  the  power  was  wasted,  the 


VIS  NOVA  409 

art  indifferent,  the  economic  failure  complete,  added  just  so  much  to 
the  interest.  The  chaos  of  education  approached  a  dream.  One  asked 
oneself  whether  this  extravagance  reflected  the  past  or  imaged  the  future ; 
whether  it  was  a  creation  of  the  old  American  or  a  promise  of  the  new 
one.  No  prophet  could  be  believed,  but  a  pilgrim  of  power,  without 
constituency  to  flatter,  might  allow  himself  to  hope.  The  prospect  from 
the  Exposition  was  pleasant ;  one  seemed  to  see  almost  an  adequate 
motive  for  power ;  almost  a  scheme  for  progress.  In  another  half- 
century,  the  people  of  the  central  valleys  should  have  hundreds  of 
millions  to  throw  away  more  easily  than  in  1900  they  could  throw  away 
tens ;  and  by  that  time  they  might  know  what  they  wanted.  Possibly 
they  might  even  have  learned  how  to  reach  it. 

This  was  an  optimist's  hope,  shared  by  few  except  pilgrims  of 
World's  Fairs,  and  frankly  dropped  by  the  multitude,  for,  east  of  the 
Mississippi,  the  St.  Louis  Exposition  met  a  deliberate  conspiracy  of 
silence,  discouraging,  beyond  measure,  to  an  optimistic  dream  of  future 
strength  in  American  expression.  The  party  got  back  to  Washington 
on  May  22,  and  before  sailing  for  Europe,  Adams  went  over,  one  warm 
evening  to  bid  good-bye  on  the  garden-porch  of  the  White  House.  He 
found  himself  the  first  person  who  urged  Mrs.  Roosevelt  to  visit  the 
Exposition  for  its  beauty,  and,  as  far  as  he  ever  knew,  the  last. 

He  left  St.  Louis  May  22,  1904,  and  on  Sunday,  June  5,  found  him 
self  again  in  the  town  of  Coutances,  where  the  people  of  Normandy  had 
built,  towards  the  year  1250,  an  Exposition  which  architects  still  admired 
and  tourists  visited,  for  it  was  thought  singularly  expressive  of  force 
as  well  as  of  grace  in  the  Virgin.  On  this  Sunday,  the  Norman  world 
was  celebrating  a  pretty  church-feast, — the  Fete  Dieu, — and  the  streets 
were  filled  with  altars  to  the  Virgin,  covered  with  flowers  and  foliage ; 
the  pavements  strewn  with  paths  of  leaves  and  the  spring  handiwork  of 
nature ;  the  cathedral  densely  thronged  at  mass.  The  scene  was  graceful. 
The  Virgin  did  not  shut  her  costly  Exposition  on  Sunday,  or  any  other 
day,  even  to  American  senators  who  had  shut  the  St.  Louis  Exposition 
to  her, — or  for  her ; — and  a  historical  tramp  would  gladly  have  offered 
a  candle,  or  even  a  candle-stick  in  her  honor,  if  she  would  have  taught 
him  her  relation  with  the  deity  of  the  senators.  The  power  of  the 
Virgin  had  been  plainly  One,  embracing  all  human  activity ;  while  the 


410  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

power  of  the  Senate,  or  its  deity,  seemed — might  one  say — to  be  more 
or  less  ashamed  of  man  and  his  work.  The  matter  had  no  great 
interest  as  far  as  it  concerned  the  somewhat  obscure  mental  processes 
of  senators,  who  could  probably  have  given  no  clearer  idea  than  priests 
of  the  deity  they  supposed  themselves  to  honor, —  if  that  was  indeed 
their  purpose ; — but  it  interested  a  student  of  force,  curious  to  measure 
its  manifestations.  Apparently  the  Virgin — or  her  Son, — had  no  longer 
the  force  to  build  expositions  that  one  cared  to  visit,  but  had  the  force 
to  close  them.  The  force  was  still  real,  serious,  and,  at  St.  Louis,  had 
been  anxiously  measured  in  actual  money-value. 

That  it  was  actual  and  serious  in  France  as  in  the  Senate  Chamber 
at  Washington,  proved  itself  at  once  by  forcing  Adams  to  buy  an 
automobile,  which  was  a  supreme  demonstration  because  this  was  the 
form  of  force  which  Adams  most  abominated.  He  had  set  aside  the 
summer  for  study  of  the  Virgin,  not  as  a  sentiment  but  as  a  motive 
power,  which  had  left  monuments  widely  scattered  and  not  easily  reached. 
The  automobile  alone  could  unite  them  in  any  reasonable  sequence, 
and  although  the  force  of  the  automobile,  for  the  purposes  of  a  com 
mercial  traveller,  seemed  to  have  no  relation  whatever  to  the  force 
that  inspired  a  Gothic  Cathedral,  the  Virgin  in  the  twelfth  century 
would  have  guided  and  controlled  both  bag-man  and  architect,  as  she 
controlled  the  seeker  of  history.  In  his  mind  the  problem  offered 
itself  as  to  Newton ;  it  was  a  matter  of  mutual  attraction,  and  he  knew 

it,  in   his   own  case,  to   be  a   formula   as   precise  as  s  =  -y,   if  he   could 

but  experimentally  prove  it.  Of  the  attraction  he  needed  no  proof  on 
his  own  account ;  the  costs  of  his  automobile  were  more  than  sufficient : 
but  as  teacher  he  needed  to  speak  for  others  than  himself.  For  him, 
the  Virgin  was  an  adorable  mistress,  who  led  the  automobile  and  its 
owner  where  she  would,  to  her  wonderful  palaces  and  chateaux,  from 
Chartres  to  Rouen,  and  thence  to  Amiens  and  Laon,  and  a  score  of 
others,  kindly  receiving,  amusing,  charming  and  dazzling  her  lover,  as 
though  she  were  Aphrodite  herself,  worth  all  else  that  man  ever  dreamed. 
He  never  doubted  her  force,  since  he  felt  it  to  the  last  fibre  of  his 
being,  and  could  no  more  dispute  its  mastery  than  he  could  dispute 
the  force  of  gravitation  of  which  he  knew  nothing  but  the  formula. 
He  was  only  too  glad  to  yield  himself  entirely,  not  to  her  charm  or 


VIS  NOVA  411 

to  any  sentimentality  of  religion,  but  to  her  mental  and  physical  energy 
of  creation  which  had  built  up  these  World's  Fairs  of  thirteenth 
century  force  that  turned  Chicago  and  St.  Louis  pale. 

"  Both  were  faiths  and  both  are  gone "  said  Matthew  Arnold  of  the 
Greek  and  Norse  divinities ;  but  the  business  of  a  student  was  to  ask 
where  they  had  gone ;  for  energy  cannot  perish.  The  Virgin  had  not 
even  altogether  gone ;  her  fading  away  had  been  excessively  slow.  Her 
adorer  had  pursued  her  too  long,  too  far,  and  into  too  many  manifesta 
tions  of  her  power,  to  admit  that  she  had  any  equivalent  either  of 
quantity  or  kind,  in  the  actual  world,  but  he  could  still  less  admit  her 
annihilation  as  force. 

So  he  went  on  wooing,  happy  in  the  thought  that  at  last  he  had 
found  a  mistress  who  could  see  no  difference  in  the  age  of  her  lovers. 
Her  own  age  had  no  time-measure.  For  years  past,  incited  by  John  La 
Farge,  Adams  had  devoted  his  summer  schooling  to  the  study  of  her 
glass  at  Chartres  and  elsewhere,  and  if  the  automobile  had  one  vitesse 
more  useful  than  another,  it  was  that  of  a  century  a  minute;  that  of 
passing  from  one  century  to  another  without  break.  The  centuries 
dropped  like  autumn  leaves  in  one's  road,  and  one  was  not  fined  for 
running  over  them  too  fast.  When  the  thirteenth  lost  breath,  the 
fourteenth  caught  on,  and  the  sixteenth  ran  close  ahead.  The  hunt  for 
the  Virgin's  glass  opened  rich  preserves.  Especially  the  sixteenth  century 
ran  riot  in  sensuous  worship.  Then  the  ocean  of  religion,  which  had 
flooded  France,  broke  into  Shelley's  light  dissolved  in  star-showers 
thrown,  which  had  left  every  remote  village  strewn  with  fragments  that 
flashed  like  jewels,  and  were  tossed  into  hidden  clefts  of  peace  and 
forgetfulness.  One  dared  not  pass  a  parish  church  in  Champagne  or 
Touraine  without  stopping  to  look  for  its  window  of  fragments,  where 
one's  glass  discovered  the  Christ-child  in  his  manger,  nursed  by  the 
head  of  a  fragmentary  donkey  with  a  Cupid  playing  into  its  long  ears 
from  the  balustrade  of  a  Venetian  palace,  guarded  by  a  legless  Flemish 
leibwache,  standing  on  his  head  with  a  broken  halbert ;  all  invoked  in 
prayer  by  remnants  of  the  donors  and  their  children  that  might  have 
been  drawn  by  Fouquet  or  Pinturicchio,  in  colors  as  fresh  and  living  as 
the  day  they  were  burned  in,  and  with  feeling  that  still  consoled  the 
faithful  for  the  paradise  they  had  paid  for  and  lost.  France  abounds  in 


412  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

sixteenth-century  glass.  Paris  alone  contains  acres  of  it,  and  the 
neighborhood  within  fifty  miles  contains  scores  of  churches  where  the 
student  may  still  imagine  himself  three  hundred  years  old,  kneeling 
before  the  Virgin's  window  in  the  silent  solitude  of  an  empty  faith, 
crying  his  culp,  beating  his  breast,  confessing  his  historical  sins,  weighed 
down  by  the  rubbish  of  sixty-six  years'  education,  and  still  desperately 
hoping  to  understand. 

He  understood  a  little  though  not  much.  The  sixteenth  century 
had  a  value  of  its  own,  as  though  the  ONE  had  become  several,  and 
unity  had  counted  more  than  Three,  though  the  Multiple  still  showed 
modest  numbers.  The  glass  had  gone  back  to  the  Roman  Empire  and 
forward  to  the  American  continent ;  it  betrayed  sympathy  with  Mon 
taigne  and  Shakespeare ;  but  the  Virgin  was  still  supreme.  At  Beau- 
vais  in  the  Church  of  Saint  Stephen  was  a  superb  tree  of  Jesse, 
famous  as  the  work  of  Engrand  le  Prince,  about  1570  or  1580,  in 
whose  branches,  among  the  fourteen  ancestors  of  the  Virgin,  three- 
fourths  bore  features  of  the  Kings  of  France,  among  them  Francis  I 
and  Henry  II,  who  were  hardly  more  edifying  than  Kings  of  Israel, 
and  at  least  unusual  as  sources  of  divine  purity.  Compared  with  the 
still  more  famous  Tree  of  Jesse  at  Chartres,  dating  from  1150  or 
thereabouts,  must  one  declare  that  Engrand  le  Prince  proved  progress? 
and  in  what  direction  ?  Complexity,  Multiplicity,  even  a  step  towards 
Anarchy,  it  might  suggest,  but  what  step  towards  perfection  ? 

One  late  afternoon,  at  midsummer,  the  Virgin's  pilgrim  was  wan 
dering  through  the  streets  of  Troyes  in  close  and  intimate  conver 
sation  with  Thibaut  of  Champagne  and  his  highly  intelligent  seneschal, 
the  Sieur  de  Joinville,  when  he  noticed  one  or  two  men  looking  at 
a  bit  of  paper  stuck  in  a  window.  Approaching,  he  read  that  M.  de 
Plehve  had  been  assassinated  at  St.  Petersburg.  The  mad  mixture  of 
Russia  and  the  Crusades,  of  the  Hippodrome  and  the  Renaissance,  drove 
him  for  refuge  into  the  fascinating  Church  of  St.  Pantaleon  near  by. 
Martyrs,  murderers,  Ca3sars,  saints  and  assassins, — half  in  glass  and  half 
in  telegram ;  chaos  of  time,  place,  morals,  forces  and  motive — gave  him 
vertigo.  Had  one  sat  all  one's  life  on  the  steps  of  Ara  Coeli  for  this? 
Was  assassination  forever  to  be  the  last  word  of  Progress?  No  one 
in  the  street  had  shown  a  sign  of  protest ;  he  himself  felt  none ;  the 


VIS  NOVA  413 

charming  Church  with  its  delightful  windows,  in  its  exquisite  absence 
of  other  tourists,  took  a  keener  expression  of  celestial  peace  than  could 
have  been  given  it  by  any  contrast  short  of  explosive  murder;  the 
conservative,  Christian  anarchist  had  come  to  his  own,  but  which  was 
he, — the  murderer  or  the  murdered? 

The  Virgin  herself  never  looked  so  winning, — so  One, — as  in  this 
scandalous  failure  of  her  Grace.  To  what  purpose  had  she  existed,  if, 
after  nineteen  hundred  years,  the  world  was  bloodier  than  when  she 
was  born  ?  The  stupendous  failure  of  Christianity  tortured  history. 
The  effort  for  Unity  could  not  be  a  partial  success ;  even  alternating 
Unity  resolved  itself  into  meaningless  motion  at  last.  To  the  tired 
student,  the  idea  that  he  must  give  it  up  seemed  sheer  senility.  As 
long  as  he  could  whisper,  he  would  go  on  as  he  had  begun,  bluntly 
refusing  to  meet  his  creator  with  the  admission  that  the  creation  had 
taught  him  nothing  except  that  the  square  of  the  hypotheneuse  of  a 
right-angled  triangle  might  for  convenience  be  taken  as  equal  to  some 
thing  else.  Every  man  with  self-respect  enough  to  become  effective,  if 
only  as  a  machine,  has  had  to  account  to  himself  for  himself  some 
how,  and  to  invent  a  formula  of  his  own  for  his  universe,  if  the 
standard  formulas  failed.  There,  whether  finished  or  not,  education 
stopped.  The  formula,  once  made,  could  be  but  verified. 

The  effort  must  begin  at  once,  for  time  pressed.  The  old  formulas 
had  failed,  and  a  new  one  had  to  be  made,  but,  after  all,  the  object  was 
not  extravagant  or  eccentric.  One  sought  no  absolute  truth.  One  sought 
only  a  spool  on  which  to  wind  the  thread  of  history  without  breaking 
it.  Among  indefinite  possible  orbits,  one  sought  the  orbit  which  would 
best  satisfy  the  observed  movement  of  the  runaway  star  Groombridge, 
1838,  commonly  called  Henry  Adams.  As  term  of  a  nineteenth-century 
education,  one  sought  a  common  factor  for  certain  definite  historical  frac 
tions.  Any  school-boy  could  work  out  the  problem  if  he  were  given 
the  right  to  state  it  in  his  own  terms. 

Therefore,  when  the  fogs  and  frosts  stopped  his  slaughter  of  the 
centuries,  and  shut  him  up  again  in  his  garret,  he  sat  down  as  though 
he  were  again  a  boy  at  school  to  shape  after  his  own  needs  the  values 
of  a  Dynamic  Theory  of  History. 


CHAPTER    XXXIII 

1904 

A  dynamic  theory,  like  most  theories,  begins  by  begging  the  ques 
tion  :  it  defines  Progress  as  the  development  and  economy  of  Forces. 
Further,  it  defines  force  as  anything  that  does,  or  helps  to  do  work. 
Man  is  a  force ;  so  is  the  sun ;  so  is  a  mathematical  point,  though 
without  dimensions  or  known  existence. 

Man  commonly  begs  the  question  again  by  taking  for  granted  that 
he  captures  the  forces.  A  dynamic  theory,  assigning  attractive  force  to 
opposing  bodies  in  proportion  to  the  law  of  mass,  takes  for  granted  that 
the  forces  of  nature  capture  man.  The  sum  of  force  attracts ;  the  feeble 
atom  or  molecule  called  man  is  attracted;  he  suffers  education  or  growth; 
he  is  the  sum  of  the  forces  that  attract  him ;  his  body  and  his  thought 
are  alike  their  product:  the  movement  of  the  forces  controls  the  progress 
of  his  mind,  since  he  can  know  nothing  but  the  motions  which  impinge 
on  his  senses,  whose  sum  makes  education. 

For  convenience  as  an  image,  the  theory  may  liken  man  to  a  spider 
in  its  web,  watching  for  chance  prey.  Forces  of  nature  dance  like  flies 
before  the  net,  and  the  spider  pounces  on  them  when  it  can ;  but  it 
makes  many  fatal  mistakes,  though  its  theory  of  force  is  sound.  The 
spider-mind  acquires  a  faculty  of  memory,  and,  with  it,  a  singular  skill 
of  analysis  and  synthesis,  taking  apart  and  putting  together  in  different 
relations  the  meshes  of  its  trap.  Man  had  in  the  beginning  no  power 
of  analysis  or  synthesis  approaching  that  of  the  spider,  or  even  of  the 
honey-bee;  but  he  had  acute  sensibility  to  the  higher  forces.  Fire 
taught  him  secrets  that  no  other  animal  could  learn ;  running  water 
probably  taught  him  even  more,  especially  in  his  first  lessons  of 
414 


A  DYNAMIC  THEORY  OF  HISTORY  415 

mechanics ;  the  animals  helped  to  educate  him,  thrusting  themselves  into 
his  hands  merely  for  the  sake  of  their  food,  and  carrying  his  burdens 
or  supplying  his  clothing ;  the  grasses  and  grains  were  academies  of 
study.  With  little  or  no  effort  on  his  part,  all  these  forces  formed  his 
thought,  induced  his  action,  and  even  shaped  his  figure. 

Long  before  history  began,  his  education  was  complete,  for  the 
record  could  not  have  been  started  until  he  had  been  taught  to  record. 
The  universe  that  had  formed  him  took  shape  in  his  mind  as  a 
reflection  of  his  own  unity,  containing  all  forces  except  himself.  Either 
separately,  or  in  groups,  or  as  a  whole,  these  forces  never  ceased  to  act 
on  him,  enlarging  his  mind  as  they  enlarged  the  surface  foliage  of  a 
vegetable,  and  the  mind  needed  only  to  respond,  as  the  forests  did,  to 
these  attractions.  Susceptibility  to  the  highest  forces  is  the  highest 
genius ;  selection  between  them  is  the  highest  science ;  their  mass  is  the 
highest  educator.  Man  always  made,  and  still  makes,  grotesque  blunders 
in  selecting  and  measuring  forces,  taken  at  random  from  the  heap,  but 
he  never  made  a  mistake  in  the  value  he  set  on  the  whole,  which  he 
symbolised  as  unity  and  worshipped  as  God.  To  this  day,  his  attitude 
towards  it  has  never  changed,  though  science  can  no  longer  give  to 
force  a  name. 

Man's  function  as  a  force  of  nature  was  to  assimilate  other  forces 
as  he  assimilated  food.  He  called  it  the  love  of  power.  He  felt  his 
own  feebleness,  and  he  sought  for  an  ass  or  a  camel,  a  bow  or  a  sling, 
to  widen  his  range  of  power,  as  he  sought  a  fetish  or  a  planet  in  the 
world  beyond.  He  cared  little  to  know  its  exact  use,  but  he  could 
afford  to  throw  nothing  away  which  he  could  conceive  to  have  possible 
value  in  this  or  any  other  existence.  He  waited  for  the  object  to 
teach  him  its  use,  or  want  of  use,  and  the  process  was  slow.  He  must 
have  gone  on  for  hundreds  of  thousands  of  years,  waiting  for  nature  to 
tell  him  her  secrets ;  and,  to  his  rivals  among  the  monkeys,  nature 
has  taught  no  more  than  at  their  start ;  but  certain  lines  of  force  acted 
on  certain  individual  apes,  and  mechanically  selected  types  of  race  or 
sources  of  variation.  The  individual  that  responded  or  reacted  to  lines 
of  new  force  then  was  possibly  the  same  individual  that  reacts  on  it 
now,  and  his  conception  of  the  unity  seems  never  to  have  changed  in 
spite  of  the  increasing  diversity  of  forces ;  but  the  theory  of  variation  is 


416  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

an  affair  of  other  science  than  history,  and  matters  nothing  to  dynamics. 
The  individual  or  the  race  has  been  educated  on  the  same  lines  of  illusion, 
which,  according  to  Arthur  Balfour,  had  not  varied  down  to  the  year  1900. 

To  the  highest  attractive  energy,  man  gave  the  name  of  divine,  and  for 
its  control  he  invented  the  science  called  Religion,  a  word  which  meant, 
and  still  means,  cultivation  of  occult  force  whether  in  detail  or  mass. 
Unable  to  define  Force  as  a  unity,  man  symbolised  it  and  pursued  it, 
both  in  himself,  and  in  the  infinite,  as  philosophy  and  theology,  creating 
a  science  which  had  the  singular  value  of  lifting  his  education,  at  the 
start,  to  the  highest,  finest,  subtlest  and  broadest  training  both  in  analysis 
and  synthesis,  so  that,  if  language  is  a  test,  he  must  have  reached  his 
highest  powers  early  in  his  history ;  while  the  mere  motive  remained 
as  simple  an  appetite  for  power  as  the  tribal  greed  which  led  him  to 
trap  an  elephant.  Hunger,  whether  for  food  or  for  the  infinite,  sets 
in  motion  multiplicity  and  infinity  of  thought,  and  the  certainty  of 
gaining  a  share  of  infinite  power  in  eternal  life,  would  lift  most  minds 
to  effort. 

He  had  reached  this  completeness  five  thousand  years  ago,  and 
added  nothing  to  his  stock  of  known  forces  for  a  very  long  time.  The 
mass  of  nature  exercised  on  him  so  feeble  an  attraction  that  one  can 
scarcely  account  for  his  apparent  motion.  Only  a  historian  of  very 
exceptional  knowledge  would  venture  to  say  at  what  date  between  3000 
B.  C.  and  1000  A.  D.,  the  mass  and  momentum  of  Europe  were  greatest; 
but  such  progress  as  was  made  consisted  in  economies  rather  than  in 
development  of  energy ;  it  was  proved  in  mathematics,  measured  by 
names  like  Archimedes,  Aristarchus,  Ptolemy  and  Euclid ;  or  in  Civil 
Law,  measured  by  a  number  of  names  which  Adams  had  begun  life  by 
failing  to  learn ;  or  in  coinage,  which  was  most  beautiful  near  its  begin 
ning,  and  most  barbarous  at  its  close ;  or  it  was  shown  in  roads,  or  the 
size  of  ships,  or  harbors ;  or  by  the  use  of  metals,  instruments  and 
writing ; — all  of  them  economies  of  force,  sometimes  more  forceful  than 
the  forces  they  helped ;  but  the  roads  were  still  travelled  by  the  horse, 
the  ass,  the  camel  or  the  slave ;  the  ships  were  still  propelled  by  sails 
or  oars ;  the  lever,  the  spring  and  the  screw  bounded  the  region  of 
applied  mechanics.  Even  the  metals  were  old. 

Much   the  same   thing   could   be   said   of   religious    or    supernatural 


A  DYNAMIC  THEORY  OF  HISTORY  417 

forces.  Down  to  the  year  300  of  the  Christian  era  they  were  little 
changed,  and  in  spite  of  Plato  and  the  sceptics  were  more  chaotic  than 
ever.  The  experience  of  three  thousand  years  had  educated  society  to 
feel  the  vastness  of  nature,  and  the  infinity  of  her  resources  of  power, 
but  even  this  increase  of  attraction  had  not  yet  caused  economies  in  its 
methods  of  pursuit. 

There  the  western  world  stood  till  the  year  A.  D.  305,  when  the 
Emperor  Diocletian  abdicated ;  and  there  it  was  that  Adams  broke  down 
on  the  steps  of  Ara  Coeli,  his  path  blocked  by  the  scandalous  failure 
of  civilisation  at  the  moment  it  had  achieved  complete  success.  In  the 
year  305  the  empire  had  solved  the  problems  of  Europe  more  completely 
than  they  have  ever  been  solved  since.  The  Pax  Romana,  the  Civil 
Law  and  Free  Trade  should,  in  four  hundred  years,  have  put  Europe 
far  in  advance  of  the  point  reached  by  modern  society  in  the  four 
hundred  years  since  1500,  when  conditions  were  less  simple. 

The  efforts  to  explain,  or  explain  away,  this  scandal  had  been 
incessant  but  none  suited  Adams  unless  it  were  the  economic  theory  of 
adverse  exchanges  and  exhaustion  of  minerals ;  but  nations  are  not  ruined 
beyond  a  certain  point  by  adverse  exchanges,  and  Rome  had  by  no 
means  exhausted  her  resources.  On  the  contrary  the  empire  developed 
resources  and  energies  quite  astounding.  No  four  hundred  years  of 
history  before  A.  D.  1800  knew  anything  like  it;  and  although  some 
of  these  developments,  like  the  Civil  Law,  the  roads,  aqueducts  and 
harbors,  were .  rather  economies  than  force,  yet  in  northwestern  Europe 
alone  the  empire  had  developed  three  energies, — France,  England  and 
Germany, — competent  to  master  the  world.  The  trouble  seemed  rather 
to  be  that  the  empire  developed  too  much  energy,  and  too  fast. 

A  dynamic  law  requires  that  two  masses — nature  and  man — must 
go  on,  reacting  upon  each  other,  without  stop,  as  the  sun  and  a 
comet  react  on  each  other,  and  that  any  appearaiice  of  stoppage  is 
illusive.  The  theory  seems  to  exact  excess,  rather  than  deficiency,  of 
action  and  re-action  to  account  for  the  dissolution  of  the  Roman  empire, 
which  should,  as  a  problem  of  mechanics,  have  been  torn  to  pieces  by 
acceleration.  If  the  student  means  to  try  the  experiment  of  framing 
a  dynamic  law,  he  must  assign  values  to  the  forces  of  attraction  that 
caused  the  trouble ;  and  in  this  case  he  has  them  in  plain  evidence. 
27 


418  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENKY  ADAMS 

With  the  relentless  logic  that  stamped  Roman  thought,  the  empire, 
which  had  established  unity  on  earth,  could  not  help  establishing  unity 
in  heaven.  It  was  induced  by  its  dynamic  necessities  to  economise  the 
Gods. 

The  Church  has  never  ceased  to  protest  against  the  charge  that 
Christianity  ruined  the  empire,  and,  with  its  usual  force,  has  pointed 
out  that  its  reforms  alone  saved  the  State.  Any  dynamic  theory  gladly 
admits  it.  All  it  asks  is  to  find  and  follow  the  force  that  attracts.  The 
Church  points  out  this  force  in  the  Cross,  and  history  needs  only  to 
follow  it.  The  empire  loudly  asserted  its  motive.  Good  taste  forbids 
saying  that  Constantine  the  Great  speculated  as  audaciously  as  a  modern 
stock-broker  on  values  of  which  he  knew  at  the  utmost  only  the  volume ; 
or  that  he  merged  all  uncertain  forces  into  a  single  Trust,  which  he 
enormously  overcapitalised,  and  forced  on  the  market ;  but  this  is  the 
substance  of  what  Constantine  himself  said  in  his  Edict  of  Milan  in  the 
year  313,  which  admitted  Christianity  into  the  Trust  of  State  Religions. 
Regarded  as  an  Act  of  Congress,  it  runs : — "  We  have  resolved  to  grant 
to  Christians  as  well  as  all  others  the  liberty  to  practice  the  religion  they 
prefer,  in  order  that  whatever  exists  of  divinity  or  celestial  power  may  help 
and  favor  us  and  all  who  are  under  our  government."  The  empire  pursued 
power, — not  merely  spiritual  but  physical, — in  the  sense  in  which  Con 
stantine  issued  his  army-order  the  year  before,  at  the  battle  of  the  Milvian 
Bridge : — In  hoc  signo  vinces !  using  the  Cross  as  a  train  of  artillery, 
which,  to  his  mind,  it  was.  Society  accepted  it  in  the  same  character. 
Eighty  years  afterwards,  Theodosius  marched  against  his  rival  Eugene 
with  the  Cross  for  champion ;  and  Eugene  raised  the  image  of  Hercules 
to  fight  for  the  pagans ;  while  society  on  both  sides  looked  on,  as  though 
it  were  a  boxing-match,  to  decide  a  final  test  of  force  between  the  divine 
powers.  The  Church  was  powerless  to  raise  the  ideal.  What  is  now 
known  as  religion  affected  the  mind  of  old  society  but  little.  The  laity, 
the  people,  the  million,  almost  to  a  man,  bet  on  the  Gods  as  they  bet 
on  a  horse. 

No  doubt  the  Church  did  all  it  could  to  purify  the  process,  but 
society  was  almost  wholly  pagan  in  its  point  of  view,  and  was  drawn  to 
the  Cross  because,  in  its  system  of  physics,  the  Cross  had  absorbed 
all  the  old  occult  or  fetish-power.  The  symbol  represented  the  sum  of 


A  DYNAMIC  THEORY  OF  HISTORY  419 

nature, — the  Energy  of  modern  science, — and  society  believed  it  to  be  as 
real  as  X-rays ; — perhaps  it  was !  The  emperors  used  it  like  gunpowder 
in  politics ;  the  physicians  used  it  like  rays  in  medicine ;  the  dying 
clung  to  it  as  the  quintessence  of  force,  to  protect  them  from  the  forces 
of  evil  on  their  road  to  the  next  life. 

Throughout  these  four  centuries  the  empire  knew  that  religion 
disturbed  economy,  for  even  the  cost  of  heathen  incense  affected  the 
exchanges;  but  no  one  could  afford  to  buy  or  construct  a  costly  and 
complicated  machine  when  he  could  hire  an  occult  force  at  trifling 
expense.  Fetish-power  was  cheap  and  satisfactory,  down  to  a  certain 
point.  Turgot  and  Auguste  Comte  long  ago  fixed  this  stage  of  economy 
as  a  necessary  phase  of  social  education,  and  historians  seem  now  to 
accept  it  as  the  only  gain  yet  made  towards  scientific  history.  Great 
numbers  of  educated  people, — perhaps  a  majority, — cling  to  the  method 
still,  and  practice  it  more  or  less  strictly ;  but,  until  quite  recently,  no 
other  was  known.  The  only  occult  power  at  man's  disposal  was  fetish. 
Against  it,  no  mechanical  force  could  compete  except  within  narrow 
limits. 

Outside  of  occult  or  fetish-power,  the  Roman  world  was  incredibly 
poor.  It  knew  but  one  productive  energy  resembling  a  modern  machine, 
— the  slave.  No  artificial  force  of  serious  value  was  applied  to  production 
or  transportation,  and  when  society  developed  itself  so  rapidly  in  political 
and  social  lines,  it  had  no  other  means  of  keeping  its  economy  on  the 
same  level,  than  to  extend  its  slave-system  and  its  fetish-system  to  the 
utmost. 

The  result  might  have  been  stated  in  a  mathematical  formula  as 
early  as  the  time  of  Archimedes,  four  hundred  years  before  Rome  fell. 
The  economic  needs  of  a  violently  centralising  society  forced  the  empire 
to  enlarge  its  slave-system  until  the  slave-system  consumed  itself  and  the 
empire  too,  leaving  society  no  resource  but  further  enlargement  of  its 
religious  system  in  order  to  compensate  for  the  losses  and  horrors  of 
the  failure.  For  a  vicious  circle,  its  mathematical  completeness  approached 
perfection.  The  dynamic  law  of  attraction  and  reaction  needed  only 
a  Newton  to  fix  it  in  algebraic  form. 

At  last,  in  410,  Alaric  sacked  Rome,  and  the  slave-ridden,  agricul 
tural,  uncommercial  western  empire, — the  poorer  and  less  Christianised 


420  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

half, — went  to  pieces.  Society,  though  terribly  shocked  by  the  horrors 
of  Alaric's  storm,  felt  still  more  deeply  the  disappointment  in  its  new 
power,  the  Cross,  which  had  failed  to  protect  its  Church.  The  outcry 
against  the  Cross  became  so  loud  among  Christians  that  its  literary 
champion,  Bishop  Augustine  of  Hippo, — a  town  between  Algiers  and 
Tunis, — was  led  to  write  a  famous  treatise  in  defense  of  the  Cross, 
familiar  still  to  every  scholar,  in  which  he  defended  feebly  the  mechanical 
value  of  the  symbol, — arguing  only  that  pagan  symbols  equally 
failed, — but  insisted  on  its  spiritual  value  in  the  Civitas  Dei  which  had 
taken  the  place  of  the  Civitas  Romae  in  human  interest.  "Granted  that 
we  have  lost  all  we  had !  Have  we  lost  faith  ?  Have  we  lost  piety  ? 
Have  we  lost  the  wealth  of  the  inner  man  who  is  rich  before  God? 
These  are  the  wealth  of  Christians!"  The  Civitas  Dei,  in  its  turn, 
became  the  sum  of  attraction  for  the  western  world,  though  it  also 
showed  the  same  weakness  in  mechanics  that  had  wrecked  the  Civitas 
Romae.  Saint  Augustine  and  his  people  perished  at  Hippo  towards  430, 
leaving  society  in  appearance  dull  to  new  attraction. 

Yet  the  attraction  remained  constant.  The  delight  of  experimenting 
on  occult  force  of  every  kind  is  such  as  to  absorb  all  the  free  thought 
of  the  human  race.  The  Gods  did  their  work ;  history  has  no  quarrel 
with  them ;  they  led,  educated,  enlarged  the  mind ;  taught  knowledge ; 
betrayed  ignorance;  stimulated  effort.  So  little  is  known  about  the  mind, 
whether  social,  racial,  sexual  or  heritable ;  whether  material  or  spiritual ; 
whether  animal,  vegetable  or  mineral ;  that  history  is  inclined  to  avoid 
it  altogether ;  but  nothing  forbids  one  to  admit,  for  convenience,  that 
it  may  assimilate  food  like  the  body,  storing  new  force  and  growing, 
like  a  forest,  with  the  storage.  The  brain  has  not  yet  revealed  its 
mysterious  mechanism  of  grey  matter.  Never  has  nature  offered  it  so 
violent  a  stimulant  as  when  she  opened  to  it  the  possibility  of  sharing 
infinite  power  in  eternal  life,  and  it  might  well  need  a  thousand  years 
of  prolonged  and  intense  experiment  to  prove  the  value  of  the  motive. 
During  these  so-called  middle-ages,  the  western  mind  reacted  in  many 
forms,  on  many  sides,  expressing  its  motives  in  modes,  such  as 
Romanesque  and  Gothic  architecture,  glass  windows  and  mosaic  walls, 
sculpture  and  poetry,  war  and  love,  which  still  affect  some  people  as 
the  noblest  work  of  man,  so  that,  even  to-day,  great  masses  of  idle 


A  DYNAMIC  THEORY  OF  HISTORY  421 

and  ignorant  tourists  travel  from  far  countries  to  look  at  Ravenna  and 
San  Marco,  Palermo  and  Pisa,  Assisi,  Cordova,  Chartres,  with  vague 
notions  about  the  force  that  created  them,  but  with  a  certain  surprise 
that  a  social  mind  of  such  singular  energy  and  unity  should  still  lurk 
in  their  shadows. 

The  tourist  more  rarely  visits  Constantinople  or  studies  the  archi 
tecture  of  Sancta  Sofia,  but  when  he  does,  he  is  distinctly  conscious  of 
forces  not  quite  the  same.  Justinian  has  not  the  simplicity  of  Charle 
magne.  The  eastern  empire  showed  an  activity  and  variety  of  forces 
that  classical  Europe  never  possessed.  The  navy  of  Nicephoras  Phocas 
in  the  tenth  century  would  have  annihilated  in  half  an  hour  any  navy 
that  Carthage  or  Athens  or  Rome  ever  set  afloat.  The  dynamic  scheme 
began  by  asserting  rather  recklessly  that  between  the  Pyramids  (B.  C. 
3000),  and  the  Cross  (A.  D.  300),  no  new  force  affected  western  progress, 
and  antiquarians  may  easily  dispute  the  fact ;  but  in  any  case  the  motive 
influence,  old  or  new,  which  raised  both  Pyramids  and  Cross  was  the 
same  attraction  of  power  in  a  future  life  that  raised  the  dome  of  Sancta 
Sofia  and  the  Cathedral  at  Amiens,  however  much  it  was  altered, 
enlarged,  or  removed  to  distance  in  space.  Therefore,  no  single  event 
has  more  puzzled  historians  than  the  sudden,  unexplained  appearance  of 
at  least  two  new  natural  forces  of  the  highest  educational  value  in 
mechanics,  for  the  first  time  within  record  of  history.  Literally,  these 
two  forces  seemed  to  drop  from  the  sky  at  the  precise  moment  that  the 
Cross  on  one  side  and  the  Crescent  on  the  other,  proclaimed  the  complete 
triumph  of  the  Civitas  Dei.  Had  the  Manichean  doctrine  of  Good  and 
Evil  as  rival  deities  been  orthodox,  it  would  alone  have  accounted  for 
this  simultaneous  victory  of  hostile  powers. 

Of  the  compass,  as  a  step  towards  demonstration  of  the  dynamic 
law,  one  may  confidently  say  that  it  proved,  better  than  any  other 
force,  the  widening  scope  of  the  mind,  since  it  widened  immensely  the  range 
of  contact  between  nature  and  thought.  The  compass  educated.  This 
must  prove  itself  as  needing  no  proof.  Of  Greek  fire  and  Gunpowder, 
the  same  thing  cannot  be  said,  for  they  have  the  air  of  accidents  due  to 
the  attraction  of  religious  motives.  They  belong  to  the  spiritual  world ; 
or  to  the  doubtful  ground  of  Magic  which  lay  between  Good  and  Evil. 
They  were  chemical  forces,  mostly  explosives,  which  acted  and  still  act 


422  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

as  the  most  violent  educators  ever  known  to  man,  but  they  were  justly 
feared  as  diabolic,  and  whatever  insolence  man  may  have  risked  towards 
the  milder  teachers  of  his  infancy,  he  was  an  abject  pupil  towards 
explosives.  The  Sieur  de  Joinville  left  a  record  of  the  energy  with  which 
the  relatively  harmless  Greek  fire  educated  and  enlarged  the  French 
mind  in  a  single  night  in  the  year  1249,  when  the  crusaders  were 
trying  to  advance  on  Cairo.  The  good  king  Saint  Louis  and  all  his 
staff  dropped  on  their  knees  at  every  fiery  flame  that  flew  by,  praying 
— "God  have  pity  on  us!",  and  never  had  man  more  reason  to  call  on 
his  Gods  than  they,  for  the  battle  of  religion  between  Christian  and 
Saracen  was  trifling  compared  with  that  of  education  between  gunpowder 
and  the  Cross. 

The  fiction  that  society  educated  itself,  or  aimed  at  a  conscious 
purpose,  was  upset  by  the  Compass  and  Gunpowder  which  dragged  and 
drove  Europe  at  will  through  frightful  bogs  of  learning.  At  first,  the 
apparent  lag  for  want  of  volume  in  the  new  energies  lasted  one  or  two 
centuries,  which  closed  the  great  epochs  of  emotion  by  the  Gothic 
Cathedrals  and  Scholastic  Theology.  The  moment  had  Greek  beauty 
and  more  than  Greek  pathos,  but  it  was  brief;  and  for  another  century 
or  two,  western  society  seemed  to  float  in  space  without  apparent  motion. 
Yet  the  attractive  mass  of  nature's  energy  continued  to  attract,  and 
education  became  more  rapid  than  ever  before.  Society  began  to  resist, 
but  the  individual  showed  greater  and  greater  insistance,  without  realising 
what  he  was  doing.  When  the  Crescent  drove  the  Cross  in  shameful 
ignominy  from  Constantinople  in  1453,  Gutenberg  and  Faust  were 
printing  their  first  Bible  at  Mainz  under  the  impression  that  they  were 
helping  the  Cross.  When  Columbus  discovered  the  West  Indies  in  1492, 
the  Church  looked  on  it  as  a  victory  of  the  Cross.  When  Luther  and 
Calvin  upset  Europe  half  a  century  later,  they  were  trying,  like 
St.  Augustine,  to  substitute  the  Civitas  Dei  for  the  Civitas  Romae.  When 
the  Puritans  set  out  for  New  England  in  1620,  they  too  were  looking 
to  found  a  Civitas  Dei  in  State  Street;  and  when  Bunyan  made  his 
Pilgrimage  in  1678,  he  repeated  St.  Jerome.  Even  when,  after  centuries 
of  license,  the  Church  reformed  its  discipline,  and,  to  prove  it,  burned 
Giordano  Bruno  in  1600,  besides  condemning  Galileo  in  1630,  —  as 
science  goes  on  repeating  to  us  every  day, — it  condemned  anarchists,  not 


A  DYNAMIC  THEORY   OF  HISTORY  423 

atheists.  None  of  the  astronomers  were  irreligious  men ;  all  of  them 
made  a  point  of  magnifying  God  through  his  works ;  a  form  of  science 
which  did  their  religion  no  credit.  Neither  Galileo  nor  Kepler,  neither 
Spinoza  nor  Descartes,  neither  Leibnitz  nor  Newton,  any  more  than 
Constantine  the  Great, — if  so  much, — doubted  Unity.  The  utmost  range 
of  their  heresies  reached  only  its  personality. 

This  persistence  of  thought-inertia  is  the  leading  idea  of  modern 
history.  Except  as  reflected  in  himself,  man  has  no  reason  for  assuming 
unity  in  the  universe,  or  an  ultimate  substance,  or  a  prime-motor. 
The  a  priori  insistance  on  this  unity  ended  by  fatiguing  the  more 
active — or  reactive  —  minds;  and  Lord  Bacon  tried  to  stop  it.  He 
urged  society  to  lay  aside  the  idea  of  evolving  the  universe  from  a 
thought,  and  to  try  evolving  unity  from  multiplicity.  The  mind  should 
observe  and  register  forces, — take  them  apart  and  put  them  together, — 
without  assuming  unity  at  all.  "  Nature,  to  be  commanded,  must  be 
obeyed."  "  The  imagination  must  be  given  not  wings  but  weights."  As 
Galileo  reversed  the  action  of  earth  and  sun,  Bacon  reversed  the  rela 
tion  of  thought  to  force.  The  mind  was  thenceforth  to  follow  the 
movement  of  matter,  and  unity  must  be  left  to  shift  for  itself. 

The  change  of  attitude  seemed  voluntary,  but  in  fact  was  as  mechani 
cal  as  gravitation.  Man  created  nothing.  After  1500,  the  revolution 
in  forces  so  rapidly  surpassed  man's  gait  as  to  alarm  everyone,  as 
though  it  were  the  approach  of  storm,  or  the  acceleration  of  a  falling 
body.  Lord  Bacon  was  as  much  astonished  by  it  as  the  Church  was, 
and  with  reason.  Suddenly  society  felt  itself  dragged  into  situations 
altogether  new  and  anarchic, — situations  which  it  could  not  affect,  but 
which  painfully  affected  it.  Instinct  taught  it  that  the  universe  in  its 
thought  must  be  in  danger  when  its  reflection  lost  itself  in  space.  The 
danger  was  all  the  greater  because  men  of  science  covered  it  with 
"  larger  synthesis,"  and  poets  called  the  undevout  astronomer  mad. 
Society  knew  better.  Yet  the  telescope  held  it  rigidly  standing  on 
its  head ;  the  microscope  revealed  a  universe  that  defied  the  senses ; 
gunpowder  killed  whole  races  that  lagged  behind ;  the  compass  coerced 
the  most  imbruted  mariner  to  act  on  the  impossible  idea  that  the  earth 
was  round ;  the  press  drenched  Europe  with  anarchism.  Europe  saw 
itself,  violently  resisting,  wrenched  into  false  positions,  drawn  along  new 


424  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

lines  as  a  fish  that  is  caught  on  a  hook  ;  but  unable  to  understand  by 
what  force  it  was  controlled.  The  resistance  was  often  bloody,  some 
times  humorous,  always  constant.  Its  contortions  in  the  eighteenth  century 
are  best  studied  in  the  wit  of  Voltaire,  but  all  history  and  all  philosophy 
from  Montaigne  and  Pascal  to  Schopenhauer  and  Nietsche  deal  with 
nothing  else ;  and  still,  throughout  it  all,  the  Baconian  law  held  good ; 
— thought  did  not  evolve  nature,  but  nature  evolved  thought.  Not  one 
considerable  man  of  science  ever  dared  face  the  stream  of  thought ;  but 
the  whole  number  of  those  who  acted,  like  Franklin,  as  electric  con 
ductors  of  the  new  forces  from  nature  to  man,  down  to  the  year  1800, 
did  not  exceed  a  few  score,  and  these  were  confined  to  a  few  towns 
in  western  Europe.  Asia  refused  to  be  touched  by  new  force,  and 
America,  except  for  Franklin,  stood  outside. 

Very  slowly  the  accretion  of  these  new  forces,  chemical  and 
mechanical,  grew  in  volume  until  they  acquired  sufficient  mass  to  take 
the  place  of  the  old  religious  science,  substituting  their  attraction  for  the 
attractions  of  the  Civitas  Dei,  but  the  process  remained  the  same. 
Nature,  not  mind,  did  the  work  that  the  sun  does  on  the  planets.  Man 
depended  more  and  more  absolutely  on  forces  other  than  his  own,  and 
on  instruments  which  superseded  his  senses.  Bacon  foretold  it: — "Neither 
the  naked  hand  nor  the  understanding,  left  to  itself,  can  effect  much. 
It  is  by  instruments  and  helps  that  the  work  is  done."  Once  done,  the 
mind  resumed  its  illusion,  and  society  forgot  its  impotence;  but  no  one 
better  than  Bacon  knew  its  tricks,  and  for  his  true  followers  science 
always  meant  self-restraint,  obedience,  sensitiveness  to  impulse  from 
without. 

The  success  of  this  method  staggers  belief,  and  even  to-day  can 
be  treated  by  history  only  as  a  miracle  of  growth,  like  the  sports  of 
nature.  Evidently  a  new  variety  of  mind  had  appeared.  Certain  men 
merely  held  out  their  hands,  —  like  Newton,  watched  an  apple;  like 
Franklin,  flew  a  kite;  like  Watt,  played  with  a  tea-kettle,  —  and  great 
forces  of  nature  stuck  to  them  as  though  she  were  playing  ball. 
Governments  did  almost  nothing  but  resist.  Even  gunpowder  and 
ordnance,  the  great  weapon  of  government,  showed  little  development 
between  1400  and  1800.  Society  was  hostile  or  indifferent,  as  Priestley 
and  Jenner,  and  even  Fulton,  with  reason  complained  in  the  most 


A  DYNAMIC  THEORY  OF  HISTORY  425 

advanced  societies  in  the  world,  while  its  resistance  became  acute 
wherever  the  Church  held  control ;  until  all  mankind  seemed  to  draw 
itself  out  in  a  long  series  of  groups,  dragged  on  by  an  attractive  power 
in  advance,  which  even  the  leaders  obeyed  without  understanding,  as 
the  planets  obeyed  gravity,  or  the  trees  obeyed  heat  and  light. 

The  influx  of  new  force  was  nearly  spontaneous.  The  reaction  of 
mind  on  the  mass  of  nature  seemed  not  greater  than  that  of  a  planet 
on  the  sun ;  and  had  the  spontaneous  influx  of  force  stopped  in  Europe, 
society  must  have  stood  still,  or  gone  backward,  as  in  Asia  or  Africa. 
Then  only  economies  of  process  would  have  counted  as  new  force,  and 
society  would  have  been  better  pleased ;  for  the  idea  that  new  force 
must  be  in  itself  a  good  is  only  an  animal  or  vegetable  instinct.  As 
nature  developed  her  hidden  energies,  they  tended  to  become  destructive. 
Thought  itself  became  tortured,  suffering  reluctantly,  impatiently,  pain 
fully,  the  coercion  of  new  method.  Easy  thought  had  always  been 
movement  of  inertia,  and  mostly  mere  sentiment ;  but  even  the  processes 
of  mathematics  measured  feebly  the  needs  of  force. 

The  stupendous  acceleration  after  1800  ended  in  1900  with  the 
appearance  of  the  new  class  of  supersensual  forces,  before  which  the  man 
of  science  stood  as  bewildered  and  helpless  as,  in  the  fourth  century,  a 
priest  of  Isis  before  the  Cross  of  Christ. 

This,  then,  or  something  like  this,  would  be  a  dynamic  formula  of 
history.  Any  school-boy  knows  enough  to  object  at  once  that  it  is  the 
oldest  and  most  universal  of  all  theories.  Church  and  State,  theology 
and  philosophy,  have  always  preached  it,  differing  only  in  the  allotment 
of  energy  between  nature  and  man.  Whether  the  attractive  energy  has 
been  called  God  or  Nature,  the  mechanism  has  been  always  the  same, 
and  history  is  not  obliged  to  decide  whether  the  Ultimate  tends  to  a 
purpose  or  not,  or  whether  ultimate  energy  is  one  or  many.  Everyone 
admits  that  the  will  is  a  free  force,  habitually  decided  by  motives.  No 
one  denies  that  motives  exist  adequate  to  decide  the  will ;  even  though 
it  may  not  always  be  conscious  of  them.  Science  has  proved  that  forces, 
sensible  and  occult,  physical  and  metaphysical,  simple  and  complex, 
surround,  traverse,  vibrate,  rotate,  repel,  attract,  without  stop ;  that  man's 
senses  are  conscious  of  few,  and  only  in  a  partial  degree ;  but  that,  from 
the  beginning  of  organic  existence,  his  consciousness  has  been  induced, 


426  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

expanded,  trained  in  the  lines  of  his  sensitiveness ;  and  that  the  rise  of 
his  faculties  from  a  lower  power  to  a  higher,  or  from  a  narrower  to  a 
wider  field,  may  be  due  to  the  function  of  assimilating  and  storing 
outside  force  or  forces.  There  is  nothing  unscientific  in  the  idea  that, 
beyond  the  lines  of  force  felt  by  the  senses,  the  universe  may  be, — as  it 
has  always  been, — either  a  supersensuous  chaos  or  a  divine  unity,  which 
irresistibly  attracts,  and  is  either  life  or  death  to  penetrate.  Thus  far, 
religion,  philosophy  and  science  seem  to  go  hand  in  hand.  The  schools 
begin  their  vital  battle  only  there.  In  the  earlier  stages  of  progress,  the 
forces  to  be  assimilated  were  simple  and  easy  to  absorb,  but,  as  the  mind 
enlarged  its  range,  it  enlarged  the  field  of  complexity,  and  must  continue 
to  do  so,  even  into  chaos,  until  the  reservoirs  of  sensuous  or  super- 
sensuous  energies  are  exhausted,  or  cease  to  affect  him,  or  until  he 
succumbs  to  their  excess. 

For  past  history,  this  way  of  grouping  its  sequences  may  answer 
for  a  chart  of  relations,  although  any  serious  student  would  need  to 
invent  another,  to  compare  or  correct  its  errors ;  but  past  history  is  only 
a  value  of  relation  to  the  future,  and  this  value  is  wholly  one  of 
convenience,  which  can  be  tested  only  by  experiment.  Any  law  of 
movement  must  include,  to  make  it  a  convenience,  some  mechanical 
formula  of  acceleration. 


CHAPTER    XXXIV 

1904 

Images  are  not  arguments,  rarely  even  lead  to  proof,  but  the  mind 
craves  them,  and,  of  late  more  than  ever,  the  keenest  experimenters  find 
twenty  images  better  than  one,  especially  if  contradictory ;  since  the 
human  mind  has  already  learned  to  deal  in  contradictions. 

The  image  needed  here  is  that  of  a  new  center,  or  preponderating 
mass,  artificially  introduced  on  earth  in  the  midst  of  a  system  of  attrac 
tive  forces  that  previously  made  their  own  equilibrium,  and  constantly 
induced  to  accelerate  its  motion  till  it  shall  establish  a  new  equilibrium. 
A  dynamic  theory  would  begin  by  assuming  that  all  history,  terrestrial 
or  cosmic,  mechanical  or  intellectual,  would  be  reduceable  to  this  formula 
if  we  knew  the  facts. 

For  convenience,  the  most  familiar  image  should  come  first ;  and 
this  is  probably  that  of  the  comet,  or  meteoric  streams,  like  the  Leonids 
and  Perseids ;  a  complex  of  minute  mechanical  agencies,  reacting  within 
and  without,  and  guided  by  the  sum  of  forces  attracting  or  deflecting 
it.  Nothing  forbids  one  to  assume  that  the  man-meteorite  might  grow,  as 
an  acorn  does,  absorbing  light,  heat,  electricity, — or  thought ;  for,  in 
recent  times,  such  transference  of  energy  has  become  a  familiar  idea; 
but  the  simplest  figure,  at  first,  is  that  of  a  perfect  comet, — say  that  of 
1843, — which  drops  from  space,  in  a  straight  line,  at  the  regular  acceler 
ation  of  speed,  directly  into  the  sun,  and  after  wheeling  sharply  about 
it,  in  heat  that  ought  to  dissipate  any  known  substance,  turns  back 
unharmed,  in  defiance  of  every  law  of  thermo-dynamics,  by  the  path  on 
which  it  came.  The  mind,  by  analogy,  may  figure  as  such  a  comet, 
the  better  because  it  also  defies  law. 

427 


428  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

Motion  is  the  ultimate  object  of  science,  and  measures  of  motion 
are  many  ;  but  with  thought  as  with  matter,  the  true  measure  is  mass, — 
the  sum  of  attractive  forces.  Science  has  quite  enough  trouble  in  measuring 
its  material  motions  without  volunteering  help  to  the  historian,  but  the 
historian  needs  not  much  help  to  measure  some  kinds  of  social  move 
ment  ;  and  especially  in  the  nineteenth  century,  society  by  common  accord 
agreed  in  measuring  its  progress  by  the  coal-output.  The  ratio  of 
increase  in  the  volume  of  coal-power  may  serve  as  dynamometer. 

The  coal-output  of  the  world,  speaking  roughly,  doubled  every  ten 
years  between  1800  and  1900,  in  the  form  of  utilized  power,  for  the  ton 
of  coal  yielded  three  or  four  times  as  much  power  in  1900  as  in  1840. 
Rapid  as  this  rate  of  acceleration  in  volume  seems,  it  may  be  tested  in  a 
thousand  ways  without  greatly  reducing  it.  Perhaps  the  ocean  steamer 
is  nearest  unity  and  easiest  to  measure,  for  anyone  might  hire,  in  1905, 
for  a  small  sum  of  money,  the  use  of  30,000  steam-horse-power  to  cross 
the  ocean,  and  by  halving  this  figure  every  ten  years,  he  got  back  to 
234  horse  power  for  1835,  which  was  accuracy  enough  for  his  purposes. 
In  truth,  his  chief  trouble  came  not  from  the  ratio  in  volume  of  heat, 
but  from  the  intensity,  since  he  could  get  no  basis  for  a  ratio  there. 
All  ages  of  history  have  known  high  intensities,  like  the  iron-furnace, 
the  burning-glass,  the  blow-pipe ;  but  no  society  has  ever  used  high- 
intensities  on  any  large  scale  till  now,  nor  can  a  mere  bystander  decide 
what  range  of  temperature  is  now  in  common  use.  Loosely  guessing 
that  science  controls  habitually  the  whole  range  from  absolute  zero  to 
3000°  Centigrade,  one  might  assume,  for  convenience,  that  the  ten  year 
ratio  for  volume  could  be  used  temporarily  for  intensity ;  and  still  there 
remained  a  ratio  to  be  guessed  for  other  forces  than  heat.  Since  1800 
scores  of  new  forces  had  been  discovered ;  old  forces  had  been  raised  to 
higher  powers,  as  could  be  measured  in  the  navy-gun ;  great  regions  of 
chemistry  had  been  opened  up,  and  connected  with  other  regions  of 
physics.  Within  ten  years  a  new  universe  of  force  had  been  revealed  in 
radiation.  Complexity  had  extended  itself  on  immense  horizons,  and 
arithmetical  ratios  were  useless  for  any  attempt  at  accuracy.  The  force 
evolved  seemed  more  like  explosion  than  gravitation ;  but,  at  all  events, 
the  ten-year  ratio  seemed  carefully  conservative.  Unless  the  calculator 
was  prepared  to  be  instantly  overwhelmed  by  physical  force  and  mental 
complexity,  he  must  stop  there. 


A  LAW  OF  ACCELERATION  429 

Thus,  taking  the  year  1900  as  the  starting  point  for  carrying  back 
the  series,  nothing  was  easier  than  to  assume  a  ten-year  period  of 
retardation  as  far  back  as  1800,  but  beyond  that  point  the  statistician 
failed,  and  only  the  mathematician  could  help.  La  Place  would  have 
found  it  child's-play  to  fix  a  ratio  of  progression  in  mathematical  science 
between  Descartes,  Leibnitz,  Newton  and  himself.  Watt  could  have  given 
in  pounds  the  increase  of  power  between  Newcomen's  engines  and  his 
own.  Volta  and  Benjamin  Franklin  would  have  stated  their  progress  as 
absolute  creation  of  power.  Dalton  could  have  measured  minutely  his 
advance  on  Boerhave.  Napoleon  I  must  have  had  a  distinct  notion  of  his 
own  numerical  relation  to  Louis  XIV.  No  one  in  1789  doubted  the 
progress  of  force,  least  of  all  those  who  were  to  lose  their  heads  by  it. 

Pending  agreement  between  these  authorities,  theory  may  assume 
what  it  likes, — say  a  twenty-five  year  period  of  reduplication  for  the 
eighteenth  century,  for  the  period  matters  little  until  the  acceleration 
itself  is  admitted.  The  subject  is  even  more  amusing  in  the  seventeenth 
than  in  the  eighteenth  century,  because  Galileo  and  Kepler,  Descartes, 
Huyghens  and  Isaac  Newton  took  vast  pains  to  fix  the  laws  of 
acceleration  for  moving  bodies,  while  Lord  Bacon  and  William  Harvey 
were  content  with  showing  experimentally  the  fact  of  acceleration  in 
knowledge;  but  from  their  combined  results  a  historian  might  be  tempted 
to  maintain  the  same  rate  of  movement  back  to  1600,  subject  to  correction 
from  the  historians  of  mathematics. 

The  mathematicians  might  carry  their  calculations  back  as  far  as 
the  fourteenth  century  when  algebra  seems  to  have  become  for  the  first 
time,  the  standard  measure  of  mechanical  progress  in  western  Europe ;  for 
not  only  Copernicus  and  Tycho  Brahe,  but  even  artists  like  Leonardo, 
Michael  Angelo  and  Albert  Diirer  worked  by  mathematical  processes, 
and  their  testimony  would  probably  give  results  more  exact  than  that  of 
Montaigne  or  Shakespeare ;  but,  to  save  trouble,  one  might  tentatively 
carry  back  the  same  ratio  of  acceleration,  or  retardation,  to  the  year 
1400,  with  the  help  of  Columbus  and  Gutenberg,  so  taking  a  uniform 
rate  during  the  whole  four  centuries  (1400-1800),  and  leaving  to  statisti 
cians  the  task  of  correcting  it. 

In  other  words,  one  might,  for  convenience,  use  the  formula  of 
terrestrial  gravitation  to  serve  for  a  law  of  mind.  Any  other  formula 


430  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

would  do  as  well,  either  of  chemical  explosion  or  vegetable  growth,  or  of 
expansion  or  contraction  in  innumerable  forms ;  but  gravitation  happens 
to  be  simple  and  convenient.  As  the  human  meteoroid  approached  the 
sun  or  centre  of  attractive  force,  it  may  be  supposed  to  have  doubled 
its  speed  and  energy  every  five-and-twenty  years. 

Behind  the  year  1400,  the  process  certainly  went  on,  but  the  progress 
became  so  slight  as  to  be  hardly  measureable.  What  was  gained  in  the 
east  or  elsewhere,  cannot  be  known ;  but  forces,  called  loosely  Greek  fire 
and  gunpowder,  came  into  use  in  the  west,  as  well  as  instruments  like  the 
compass  and  blow-pipe ;  while  metaphysics  and  theology  acted  as  violent 
stimulants  to  mind.  An  architect  might  detect  a  sequence  between  the 
Church  of  St.  Peter's  at  Rome,  the  Amiens  Cathedral,  the  Duomo  at 
Pisa,  San  Marco  at  Venice,  Sancta  Sofia  at  Constantinople  and  the 
churches  at  Ravenna.  All  the  historian  dares  afiirm  is  that  a  sequence 
is  manifestly  there,  and  he  has  a  right  to  carry  back  his  ratio,  to  repre 
sent  the  fact,  without  assuming  its  numerical  correctness.  On  the  human 
mind  as  a  moving  body,  the  break  in  acceleration  in  the  middle-ages 
is  only  apparent;  the  attraction  worked  through  shifting  forms  of  force, 
as  the  sun  works  by  light  or  heat,  electricity,  gravitation,  or  what  not, 
on  different  organs  with  different  sensibilities,  but  with  invariable  law. 

The  science  of  prehistoric  man  has  no  value  except  to  prove  that 
the  law  went  back  into  indefinite  antiquity.  A  stone  arrowhead  is  as 
convincing  as  a  steam-engine.  The  values  were  as  clear  a  hundred 
thousand  years  ago  as  now,  and  extended  equally  over  the  whole  world. 
The  motion  at  last  became  infinitely  small,  but  cannot  be  proved  to 
have  stopped.  To  evolutionists  may  be  left  the  processes  of  evolution ; 
to  historians  the  single  interest  is  the  law  of  reaction  between  force  and 
force, — between  mind  and  nature, — the  law  of  progress. 

The  great  division  of  history  into  phases  by  Turgot  and  Comte  first 
affirmed  this  law  in  its  outlines  by  asserting  the  unity  of  progress,  for  a 
mere  phase  interrupts  no  growth,  and  nature  shows  innumerable  such 
phases.  The  development  of  coal-power  in  the  nineteenth  century 
furnished  the  first  means  of  assigning  closer  values  to  the  elements ;  and 
the  appearance  of  supersensual  forces  towards  1900  made  this  calculation 
a  pressing  necessity ;  since  the  next  step  became  infinitely  serious. 

A  law  of  acceleration,  definite  and  constant  as  any  law  of  mechanics, 


A  LAW  OF  ACCELERATION  431 

cannot  be  supposed  to  relax  its  energy  to  suit  the  convenience  of  man. 
No  one  is  likely  to  suggest  a  theory  that  man's  convenience  has  been 
consulted  by  nature  at  any  time,  or  that  nature  has  consulted  the 
convenience  of  any  of  her  creations,  except  perhaps  the  Terebratula.  In 
every  age  man  has  bitterly  and  justly  complained  that  nature  hurried 
and  hustled  him,  for  inertia  almost  invariably  has  ended  in  tragedy. 
Resistance  is  its  law,  and  resistance  to  superior  mass  is  futile  and  fatal. 

Fifty  years  ago,  science  took  for  granted  that  the  rate  of  acceleration 
could  not  last.  The  world  forgets  quickly,  but  even  to-day  the  habit 
remains  of  founding  statistics  on  the  faith  that  consumption  will  continue 
nearly  stationary.  Two  generations,  with  John  Stuart  Mill,  talked  of 
this  stationary  period,  which  was  to  follow  the  explosion  of  new  power. 
All  the  men  who  were  elderly  in  the  forties  died  in  this  faith,  and 
other  men  grew  old,  nursing  the  same  conviction,  and  happy  in  it ; 
while  science,  for  fifty  years,  permitted,  or  encouraged,  society  to  think 
that  force  would  prove  to  be  limited  in  supply.  This  mental  inertia 
of  science  lasted  through  the  eighties  before  showing  signs  of  breaking 
up ;  and  nothing  short  of  radium  fairly  wakened  men  to  the  fact,  long 
since  evident,  that  force  was  inexhaustible.  Even  then  the  scientific 
authorities  vehemently  resisted. 

Nothing  so  revolutionary  had  happened  since  the  year  300.  Thought 
had  more  than  once  been  upset,  but  never  caught  and  whirled  about  in 
the  vortex  of  infinite  forces.  Power  leaped  from  every  atom,  and  enough 
of  it  to  supply  the  stellar  universe  showed  itself  running  to  waste  at 
every  pore  of  matter.  Man  could  no  longer  hold  it  off.  Forces 
grasped  his  wrists  and  flung  him  about  as  though  he  had  hold  of  a 
live  wire  or  a  runaway  automobile ;  which  was  very  nearly  the  exact 
truth  for  the  purposes  of  an  elderly  and  timid  single  gentleman  in  Paris, 
who  never  drove  down  the  Champs  Elysees  without  expecting  an  accident, 
and  generally  witnessing  one ;  or  found  himself  in  the  neighborhood  of 
an  official  without  calculating  the  chances  of  a  bomb.  So  long  as  the 
invariable  law  of  progress  held  good,  these  bombs  would  double  in  force 
and  number  every  ten  years. 

Impossibilities  no  longer  stood  in  the  way.  One's  life  had  fattened 
on  impossibilities.  Before  the  boy  was  six  years  old,  he  had  seen 
four  impossibilities  made  actual,  —  the  ocean-steamer,  the  railway,  the 


432  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

electric  telegraph,  and  the  Daguerreotype ;  nor  could  he  ever  learn  which 
of  the  four  had  most  hurried  others  to  come.  He  had  seen  the  coal- 
output  of  the  United  States  grow  from  nothing  to  three  hundred  million 
tons  or  more.  What  was  far  more  serious,  he  had  seen  the  number  of 
minds,  engaged  in  pursuing  force,  increase  from  a  few  scores  or  hundreds, 
in  1838,  to  many  thousands  in  1905,  trained  to  sharpness  never  before 
reached,  and  armed  with  instruments  amounting  to  new  senses  of  indefi 
nite  power  and  accuracy,  while  they  chased  force  into  hiding-places 
where  nature  herself  had  never  known  it  to  be,  making  analyses  that 
contradicted  being,  and  syntheses  that  endangered  the  elements.  No  one 
could  say  that  the  social  mind  now  failed  to  respond  to  new  force,  even 
when  the  new  force  annoyed  it  horribly.  Every  day  nature  violently 
revolted,  causing  so-called  accidents  with  enormous  destruction  of  property 
and  life,  while  plainly  laughing  at  man,  who  helplessly  groaned  and 
shrieked  and  shuddered,  but  never  for  a  single  instant  could  stop.  The 
railways  alone  approached  the  carnage  of  war ;  automobiles  and  fire-arms 
ravaged  society,  until  an  earthquake  became  almost  a  nervous  relaxation. 
An  immense  volume  of  force  had  detached  itself  from  the  unknown 
universe  of  energy,  while  still  vaster  reservoirs,  supposed  to  be  infinite, 
steadily  revealed  themselves,  attracting  mankind  with  more  compulsive 
course  than  all  the  Pontic  Seas  or  Gods  or  Gold  that  ever  existed,  and 
feeling  still  less  of  retiring  ebb. 

In  1850,  science  would  have  smiled  at  such  a  romance  as  this,  but, 
in  1900,  as  far  as  history  could  learn,  few  men  of  science  thought  it  a 
laughing  matter.  If  a  perplexed  but  laborious  follower  could  venture  to 
guess  their  drift,  it  seemed  in  their  minds  a  toss-up  between  anarchy 
and  order.  Unless  they  should  be  more  honest  with  themselves  in  the 
future  than  ever  they  were  in  the  past,  they  would  be  more  astonished 
than  their  followers  when  they  reached  the  end.  If  Karl  Pearson's 
notions  of  the  universe  were  sound,  men  like  Galileo,  Descartes,  Leibnitz 
and  Newton  should  have  stopped  the  progress  of  science  before  1700, 
supposing  them  to  have  been  honest  in  the  religious  convictions  they 
expressed. 

In  1900  they  were  plainly  forced  back  on  faith  in  a  unity  unproved 
and  an  order  they  had  themselves  disproved.  They  had  reduced  their 
universe  to  a  series  of  relations  to  themselves.  They  had  reduced  them- 


A  LAW  OF  ACCELERATION  433 

selves  to  Motion  in  a  universe  of  Motions,  with  an  acceleration,  in  their 
own  case,  of  vertiginous  violence.  With  the  correctness  of  their  science, 
history  had  no  right  to  meddle,  since  their  science  now  lay  in  a  plane 
where  scarcely  one  or  two  hundred  minds  in  the  world  could  follow  its 
mathematical  processes ;  but  bombs  educate  vigorously,  and  even  wireless 
telegraphy  or  air-ships  might  require  the  reconstruction  of  society.  If 
any  analogy  whatever  existed  between  the  human  mind,  on  one  side,  and 
the  laws  of  motion,  on  the  other,  the  mind  had  already  entered  a  field 
of  attraction  so  violent  that  it  must  immediately  pass  beyond,  into  new 
equilibrium,  like  the  Comet  of  Newton,  or  suffer  dissipation  altogether, 
like  meteoroids  in  the  earth's  atmosphere.  If  it  behaved  like  an  explo 
sive,  it  must  rapidly  recover  equilibrium ;  if  it  behaved  like  a  vegetable, 
it  must  reach  its  limits  of  growth ;  and  even  if  it  acted  like  the  earlier 
creations  of  energy,  —  the  Saurians  and  Sharks,  —  it  must  have  nearly 
reached  the  limits  of  its  expansion.  If  science  were  to  go  on  doubling 
or  quadrupling  its  complexities  every  ten  years,  even  mathematics  would 
soon  succumb.  An  average  mind  had  succumbed  already  in  1850;  it 
could  no  longer  understand  the  problem  in  1900. 

Fortunately,  a  student  of  history  had  no  responsibility  for  the 
problem ;  he  took  it  as  science  gave  it,  and  waited  only  to  be  taught. 
With  science  or  with  society,  he  had  no  quarrel  and  claimed  no  share 
of  authority.  He  had  never  been  able  to  acquire  knowledge,  still  less  to 
impart  it;  and  if  he  had,  at  times,  felt  serious  differences  with  the 
American  of  the  nineteenth  century,  he  felt  none  with  the  American  of 
the  twentieth.  For  this  new  creation,  born  since  1900,  a  historian  asked 
no  longer  to  be  teacher  or  even  friend ;  he  asked  only  to  be  a  pupil, 
and  promised  to  be  docile,  for  once,  even  though  trodden  under  foot; 
for  he  could  see  that  the  new  American, — the  child  of  incalculable 
coal-power,  chemical  power,  electric  power,  and  radiating  energy,  as  well 
as  of  new  forces  yet  undetermined, — must  be  a  sort  of  God  compared 
with  any  former  creation  of  nature.  At  the  rate  of  progress  since  1800, 
every  American  who  lived  to  the  year  2000  would  know  how  to  control 
unlimited  power.  He  would  think  in  complexities  unimaginable  to  an 
earlier  mind.  He  would  deal  with  problems  altogether  beyond  the  range 
of  earlier  society.  To  him  the  nineteenth  century  would  stand  on  the 
same  plane  with  the  fourth, — equally  childlike, — and  he  would  only 
28 


434  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

wonder  how  both  of  them,  knowing  so  little,  and  so  weak  in  force, 
should  have  done  so  much.  Perhaps  even  he  might  go  back,  in  1964, 
to  sit  with  Gibbon  on  the  steps  of  Ara  Coeli. 

Meanwhile  he  was  getting  education.  With  that,  a  teacher  who 
had  failed  to  educate  even  the  generation  of  1870,  dared  not  interfere. 
The  new  forces  would  educate.  History  saw  few  lessons  in  the  past 
that  would  be  useful  in  the  future ;  but  one,  at  least,  it  did  see.  The 
attempt  of  the  American  of  1800  to  educate  the  American  of  1900  had 
not  often  been  surpassed  for  folly ;  and  since  1800  the  forces  and  their 
complications  had  increased  a  thousand  times  or  more.  The  attempt  of 
the  American  of  1900  to  educate  the  American  of  2000,  must  be  even 
blinder  than  that  of  the  Congressman  of  1800,  except  so  far  as  he  had 
learned  his  ignorance.  During  a  million  or  two  of  years,  every  genera 
tion  in  turn  had  toiled  with  endless  agony  to  attain  and  apply  power, 
all  the  while  betraying  the  deepest  alarm  and  horror  at  the  power  they 
created.  The  teacher  of  1900,  if  foolhardy,  might  stimulate ;  if  foolish, 
might  resist ;  if  intelligent,  might  balance,  as  wise  and  foolish  have  often 
tried  to  do  from  the  beginning ;  but  the  forces  would  continue  to  educate, 
and  the  mind  would  continue  to  react.  All  the  teacher  could  hope 
was  to  teach  it  reaction. 

Even  there  his  difficulty  was  extreme.  The  most  elementary  books 
of  science  betrayed  the  inadequacy  of  old  implements  of  thought. 
Chapter  after  chapter  closed  with  phrases  such  as  one  never  met  in 
older  literature : — "  The  cause  of  this  phenomenon  is  not  understood  "  ; 
"  science  no  longer  ventures  to  explain  causes " ;  "  the  first  step  towards 
a  causal  explanation  still  remains  to  be  taken " ;  "  opinions  are  very 
much  divided";  "in  spite  of  the  contradictions  involved  ";  "science  gets 
on  only  by  adopting  different  theories,  sometimes  contradictory."  Evi 
dently  the  new  American  would  need  to  think  in  contradictions,  and 
instead  of  Kant's  famous  four  antinomies,  the  new  universe  would  know 
no  law  that  could  not  be  proved  by  its  anti-law. 

To  educate — oneself  to  begin  with — had  been  the  effort  of  one's  life 
for  sixty  years ;  and  the  difficulties  of  education  had  gone  on  doubling 
with  the  coal  output,  until  the  prospect  of  waiting  another  ten  years,  in 
order  to  face  a  seventh  doubling  of  complexities,  allured  one's  imagi 
nation  but  slightly.  The  law  of  acceleration  was  definite,  and  did  not 


A  LAW  OF  ACCELERATION  435 

require  ten  years  more  study  except  to  show  whether  it  held  good.  No 
scheme  could  be  suggested  to  the  new  American,  and  no  fault  needed 
to  be  found,  or  complaint  made ;  but  the  next  great  influx  of  new  forces 
seemed  near  at  hand,  and  its  style  of  education  promised  to  be  violently 
coercive.  The  movement  from  unity  into  multiplicity,  between  1200  and 
1900,  was  unbroken  in  sequence,  and  rapid  in  acceleration.  Prolonged 
one  generation  longer,  it  would  require  a  new  social  mind.  Thus  far, 
since  five  or  ten  thousand  years,  the  mind  had  successfully  reacted,  and 
nothing  yet  proved  that  it  would  fail  to  react, — but  it  would  need  to  jump. 


CHAPTEE    XXXV 

1905 

Nearly  forty  years  had  passed  since  the  ex-private-secretary  landed 
at  New  York  with  the  ex-ministers  Adams  and  Motley,  when  they  saw 
American  society  as  a  long  caravan  stretching  out  towards  the  plains. 
As  he  came  up  the  bay  again,  November  5,  1904,  an  older  man  than 
either  his  father  or  Motley  in  1868,  he  found  the  approach  more  striking 
than  ever, — wonderful — unlike  anything  man  had  ever  seen, — and  like 
nothing  he  had  ever  much  cared  to  see.  The  outline  of  the  city  became 
frantic  in  its  effort  to  explain  something  that  defied  meaning.  Power 
seemed  to  have  outgrown  its  servitude  and  to  have  asserted  its  freedom. 
The  cylinder  had  exploded,  and  thrown  great  masses  of  stone  and  steam 
against  the  sky.  The  city  had  the  air  and  movement  of  hysteria,  and 
the  citizens  were  crying,  in  every  accent  of  anger  and  alarm,  that  the 
new  forces  must,  at  any  cost  be  brought  under  control.  Prosperity 
never  before  imagined,  power  never  yet  wielded  by  man,  speed  never 
reached  by  anything  but  a  meteor,  had  made  the  world  irritable,  nervous, 
querulous,  unreasonable  and  afraid.  All  New  York  was  demanding  new 
men,  and  all  the  new  forces,  condensed  into  corporations,  were  demanding 
a  new  type  of  man, — a  man  with  ten  times  the  endurance,  energy, 
will  and  mind  of  the  old  type, — for  whom  they  were  ready  to  pay 
millions  at  sight.  As  one  jolted  over  the  pavements  or  read  the  last 
week's  newspapers,  the  new  man  seemed  close  at  hand,  for  the  old  one 
had  plainly  reached  the  end  of  his  strength,  and  his  failure  had  become 
catastrophic.  Everyone  saw  it,  and  every  municipal  election  shrieked 
chaos.  A  traveller  in  the  highways  of  history  looked  out  of  the  Club 
window  on  the  turmoil  of  Fifth  Avenue,  and  felt  himself  in  Rome, 
436 


NUNC  AGE  437 

under  Diocletian,  witnessing  the  anarchy,  conscious  of  the  compulsion, 
eager  for  the  solution,  but  unable  to  conceive  whence  the  next  impulse 
was  to  come  or  how  it  was  to  act.  The  two-thousand-years  failure  of 
Christianity  roared  upward  from  Broadway,  and  no  Constantine  the  Great 
was  in  sight. 

Having  nothing  else  to  do,  the  traveller  went  on  to  Washington 
to  wait  the  end.  There  Roosevelt  was  training  Constantines  and  battling 
Trusts.  With  the  Battle  of  Trusts,  a  student  of  mechanics  felt  entire 
sympathy,  not  merely  as  a  matter  of  politics  or  society,  but  also  as  a 
measure  of  motion.  The  Trusts  and  Corporations  stood  for  the  larger 
part  of  the  new  power  that  had  been  created  since  1840,  and  were 
obnoxious  because  of  their  vigorous  and  unscrupulous  energy.  They  were 
revolutionary,  troubling  all  the  old  conventions  and  values,  as  the  screws 
of  ocean  steamers  must  trouble  a  school  of  herring.  They  tore  society  to 
pieces  and  trampled  it  under  foot.  As  one  of  their  earliest  victims,  a  citizen 
of  Quincy,  born  in  1838,  had  learned  submission  and  silence,  for  he  knew 
that,  under  the  laws  of  mechanics,  any  change,  within  the  range  of 
the  forces,  must  make  his  situation  only  worse ;  but  he  was  beyond 
measure  curious  to  see  whether  the  conflict  of  forces  would  produce  the 
new  man,  since  no  other  energies  seemed  left  on  earth  to  breed.  The 
new  man  could  be  only  a  child  born  of  contact  between  the  new  and 
the  old  energies. 

Both  had  been  familiar  since  childhood,  as  the  story  has  shown, 
and  neither  had  warped  the  umpire's  judgment  by  its  favors.  If  ever 
judge  had  reason  to  be  impartial,  it  was  he.  The  sole  object  of  his 
interest  and  sympathy  was  the  new  man,  and  the  longer  one  watched, 
the  less  could  be  seen  of  him.  Of  the  forces  behind  the  Trusts,  one 
could  see  something ;  they  owned  a  complete  organisation,  with  schools, 
training,  wealth  and  purpose ;  but  of  the  forces  behind  Roosevelt  one 
knew  little ;  their  cohesion  was  slight ;  their  training  irregular ;  their 
objects  vague.  The  public  had  no  idea  what  practical  system  it  could 
aim  at,  or  what  sort  of  men  could  manage  it.  The  single  problem  before 
it  was  not  so  much  to  control  the  Trusts  as  to  create  the  society  that 
could  manage  the  Trusts.  The  new  American  must  be  either  the  child  of 
the  new  forces  or  a  chance  sport  of  nature.  The  attraction  of  mechanical 
power  had  already  wrenched  the  American  mind  into  a  crab-like  process 


438  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

which  Roosevelt  was  making  heroic  efforts  to  restore  to  even  action,  and 
he  had  every  right  to  active  support  and  sympathy  from  all  the  world, 
especially  from  the  Trusts  themselves  so  far  as  they  were  human  ;  but 
the  doubt  persisted  whether  the  force  that  educated  was  really  man  or 
nature, — mind  or  motion.  The  mechanical  theory,  mostly  accepted  by 
science,  seemed  to  require  that  the  law  of  mass  should  rule.  In  that 
case,  progress  would  continue  as  before. 

In  that,  or  any  other  case,  a  nineteenth-century  education  was  as 
useless  or  misleading  as  an  eighteenth-century  education  had  been  to  the 
child  of  1838 ;  but  Adams  had  a  better  reason  for  holding  his  tongue. 
For  his  dynamic  theory  of  history  he  cared  no  more  than  for  the 
kinetic  theory  of  gas ;  but,  if  it  were  an  approach  to  measurement  of 
motion,  it  would  verify  or  disprove  itself  within  thirty  years.  At  the 
calculated  acceleration,  the  head  of  the  meteor-stream  must  very  soon 
pass  perihelion.  Therefore,  dispute  was  idle,  discussion  was  futile,  and 
silence,  next  to  good-temper,  was  the  mark  of  sense.  If  the  acceleration, 
measured  by  the  development  and  economy  of  forces,  were  to  continue 
at  its  rate  since  1800,  the  mathematician  of  1950  should  be  able  to  plot 
the  past  and  future  orbit  of  the  human  race  as  accurately  as  that  of  the 
November  meteoroids. 

Naturally  such  an  attitude  annoyed  the  players  in  the  game,  as 
the  attitude  of  the  umpire  is  apt  to  infuriate  the  spectators.  Above  all, 
it  was  profoundly  unmoral,  and  tended  to  discourage  effort.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  tended  to  encourage  foresight  and  to  economise  waste  of 
mind.  If  it  was  not  itself  education,  it  pointed  out  the  economies 
necessary  for  the  education  of  the  new  American.  There,  the  duty 
stopped. 

There,  too,  life  stopped.  Nature  has  educated  herself  to  a  singular 
sympathy  for  death.  On  the  antarctic  glacier,  nearly  five  thousand  feet 
above  sea-level,  Captain  Scott  found  carcases  of  seals,  where  the  animals 
had  laboriously  flopped  up,  to  die  in  peace.  "Unless  we  had  actually 
found  these  remains,  it  would  have  been  past  believing  that  a  dying  seal 
could  have  transported  itself  over  fifty  miles  of  rough,  steep,  glacier- 
surface,"  but  "  the  seal  seems  often  to  crawl  to  the  shore  or  the  ice  to 
die,  probably  from  its  instinctive  dread  of  its  marine  enemies."  In 
India,  Purun  Dass,  at  the  end  of  statesmanship,  sought  solitude,  and 


NUNC  AGE  439 

died  in  sanctity  among  the  deer  and  monkeys,  rather  than  remain  with 
man.  Even  in  America,  the  Indian  Summer  of  life  should  be  a  little 
sunny  and  a  little  sad,  like  the  season,  and  infinite  in  wealth  and  depth 
of  tone;  —  but  never  hustled.  For  that  reason,  one's  own  passive 
obscurity  seemed  sometimes  nearer  nature  than  John  Hay's  exposure. 
To  the  normal  animal  the  instinct  of  sport  is  innate,  and  historians 
themselves  were  not  exempt  from  the  passion  of  baiting  their  bears ;  but 
in  its  turn  even  the  seal  dislikes  to  be  worried  to  death  in  age  by 
creatures  that  have  not  the  strength  or  the  teeth  to  kill  him  outright. 

On  reaching  Washington,  November  14,  1904,  Adams  saw  at  a  glance 
that  Hay  must  have  rest.  Already  Mrs.  Hay  had  bade  him  prepare  to 
help  in  taking  her  husband  to  Europe  as  soon  as  the  session  should 
be  over,  and  although  Hay  protested  that  the  idea  could  not  even  be  dis 
cussed,  his  strength  failed  so  rapidly  that  he  could  not  effectually  discuss  it, 
and  ended  by  yielding  without  struggle.  He  would  equally  have  resigned 
office  and  retired,  like  Purun  Dass,  had  not  the  President  and  the 
press  protested ;  but  he  often  debated  the  subject,  and  his  friends  could 
throw  no  light  on  it.  Adams  himself,  who  had  set  his  heart  on  seeing 
Hay  close  his  career  by  making  peace  in  the  east,  could  only  urge  that 
vanity  for  vanity,  the  crown  of  peace-maker  was  worth  the  cross  of 
martyrdom ;  but  the  cross  was  full  in  sight,  while  the  crown  was  still 
uncertain.  Adams  found  his  formula  for  Russian  inertia  exasperatingly 
correct.  He  thought  that  Russia  should  have  negotiated  instantly  on  the 
fall  of  Port  Arthur,  January  1,  1905 ;  he  found  that  she  had  not  the 
energy,  but  meant  to  wait  till  her  navy  should  be  destroyed.  The  delay 
measured  precisely  the  time  that  Hay  had  to  spare. 

The  close  of  the  Session  on  March  4,  left  him  barely  the  strength 
to  crawl  on  board  ship,  March  18,  and  before  his  steamer  had  reached 
half  her  course,  he  had  revived,  almost  as  gay  as  when  he  first  lighted 
on  the  Markoe  house  in  K  Street  forty-four  years  earlier.  The  clouds 
that  gather  round  the  setting  sun  do  not  always  take  a  sober  coloring 
from  eyes  that  have  kept  watch  on  mortality ;  or,  at  least,  the  sobriety 
is  sometimes  scarcely  sad.  One  walks  with  one's  friends  squarely  up 
to  the  portal  of  life,  and  bids  good-bye  with  a  smile.  One  has  done  it 
so  often !  Hay  could  scarcely  pace  the  deck  ;  he  nourished  no  illusions ; 
he  was  convinced  that  he  should  never  return  to  his  work,  and  he  talked 


440  THE  EDUCATION  OF  HENRY  ADAMS 

lightly  of  the  death-sentence  that  he  might  any  day  expect,  but  he  threw 
off  the  coloring  of  office  and  mortality  together,  and  the  malaria  of 
power  left  its  only  trace  in  the  sense  of  tasks  incomplete. 

One  could  honestly  help  him  there.  Laughing  frankly  at  his  dozen 
treaties  hung  up  in  the  Senate  Committee-room  like  lambs  in  a  butcher's 
shop,  one  could  still  remind  him  of  what  was  solidly  completed.  In  his 
eight  years  of  office  he  had  solved  nearly  every  old  problem  of  American 
statesmanship,  and  had  left  little  or  nothing  to  annoy  his  successor.  He 
had  brought  the  great  Atlantic  powers  into  a  working  system,  and  even 
Russia  seemed  about  to  be  dragged  into  a  combine  of  intelligent  equili 
brium  based  on  an  intelligent  allotment  of  activities.  For  the  first  time 
in  fifteen  hundred  years  a  true  Roman  pax  was  in  sight,  and  would,  if 
it  succeeded,  owe  its  virtues  to  him.  Except  for  making  peace  in  Man 
churia,  he  could  do  no  more ;  and  if  the  worst  should  happen, 
setting  continent  against  continent  in  arms, — the  only  apparent  alternative 
to  his  scheme, — he  need  not  repine  at  missing  the  catastrophe. 

This  rosy  view  served  to  soothe  disgusts  which  every  parting  states 
man  feels,  and  commonly  with  reason.  One  had  no  need  to  get  out 
one's  note-book  in  order  to  jot  down  the  exact  figures  on  either  side. 
Why  add  up  the  elements  of  resistance  and  anarchy?  The  Kaiser 
supplied  him  with  these  figures,  just  as  the  Cretic  approached  Morocco. 
Everyone  was  doing  it,  and  seemed  in  a  panic  about  it.  The  chaos 
waited  only  for  his  landing. 

Arrived  at  Genoa,  the  party  hid  itself  for  a  fortnight  at  Nervi,  and 
he  gained  strength  rapidly  as  long  as  he  made  no  effort  and  heard  no 
call  for  action.  Then  they  all  went  on  to  Nauheim  without  relapse. 
There,  after  a  few  days,  Adams  left  him  for  the  regular  treatment,  and 
came  up  to  Paris.  The  medical  reports  promised  well,  and  Hay's  letters 
were  as  humorous  and  light-handed  as  ever.  To  the  last  he  wrote 
cheerfully  of  his  progress,  and  amusingly,  with  his  usual  light  scepti 
cism,  of  his  various  doctors ;  but  when  the  treatment  ended,  three  weeks 
later,  and  he  came  on  to  Paris,  he  showed,  at  the  first  glance,  that  he 
had  lost  strength,  and  the  return  to  affairs  and  interviews  wore  him 
rapidly  out.  He  was  conscious  of  it,  and  in  his  last  talk  before  starting 
for  London  and  Liverpool  he  took  the  end  of  his  activity  for  granted. 
"You  must  hold  out  for  the  peace  negotiations,"  was  the  remonstrance. 


NUNC  AGE  441 

"  I've    not    time ! "    he    replied.     "  You'll    need    little    time ! "    was    the 
rejoinder.     Each  was  correct. 

There  it  ended !  Shakespeare  himself  could  use  no  more  than  the 
common-place  to 'express  what  is  incapable  of  expression.  "The  rest  is 
silence ! "  The  few  familiar  words,  among  the  simplest  in  the  language, 
conveying  an  idea  trite  beyond  rivalry,  served  Shakespeare,  and,  as  yet,  no 
one  has  said  more.  A  few  weeks  afterwards,  one  warm  evening  in  early 
July,  as  Adams  was  strolling  down  to  dine  under  the  trees  at  Armenonville, 
he  learned  that  Hay  was  dead.  He  expected  it ;  on  Hay's  account,  he  was 
even  satisfied  to  have  his  friend  die,  as  we  would  all  die  if  we  could,  in 
full  fame,  at  home  and  abroad,  universally  regretted,  and  wielding  his 
power  to  the  last.  One  had  seen  scores  of  emperors  and  heroes  fade  into 
cheap  obscurity  even  when  alive  ;  and  now,  at  least,  one  had  not  that  to  fear 
for  one's  friend.  It  was  not  even  the  suddenness  of  the  shock,  or  the  sense  of 
void,  that  threw  Adams  into  the  depths  of  Hamlet's  Shakespearean  silence 
in  the  full  flare  of  Paris  frivolity  in  its  favorite  haunt  where  worldly  vanity 
reached  its  most  futile  climax  in  human  history;  it  was  only  the  quiet 
summons  to  follow,  —  the  assent  to  dismissal.  It  was  time  to  go.  The 
three  friends  had  begun  life  together ;  and  the  last  of  the  three  had 
no  motive, — no  attraction — to  carry  it  on  after  the  others  had  gone.  Educa 
tion  had  ended  for  all  three,  and  only  beyond  some  remoter  horizon  could 
its  values  be  fixed  or  renewed.  Perhaps  some  day — say  1938,  their  centen 
ary, —  they  might  be  allowed  to  return  together  for  a  holiday,  to  see  the 
mistakes  of  their  own  lives  made  clear  in  the  light  of  the  mistakes  of 
their  successors ;  and  perhaps  then,  for  the  first  time  since  man  began 
his  education  among  the  carnivores,  they  would  find  a  world  that 
sensitive  and  timid  natures  could  regard  without  a  shudder. 


INDEX. 


Abthorp,  Robert,  64,  67. 

Adams,  Abigail  Smith  (wife  of  President 
John  Adams),  13,  14,  308. 

Adams,  Abigail  Brown  Brooks  (wife  of 
Charles  Francis  Adams),  9,  18,  19, 
85,  254. 

Adams,  Brooks,  260,  296,  315. 

Adams,  Evelyn  Davis  (wife  of  Brooks 
Adams),  388. 

Adams,  Charles  Francis,  14,  15,  34,  125, 
254,  257  ;  his  children,  18  ;  his  position 
in  Boston,  18,  19  ;  candidate  for  Vice- 
Presidency,  20  ;  his  character,  21,  22, 
40  ;  his  political  associates,  23,  24  ; 
educator  2,  8,  29,  39,  58  ;  editor,  25  ; 
elected  to  Congress,  75,  83,  84  ;  at 
Washington,  1861,  85-90  ;  appointed 
minister  to  England,  94 ;  sails,  96  ; 
arrives  in  London,  99  ;  his  situation  in 
1861,  100,  102  ;  in  1862,  105,  111, 
113  ;  his  collision  with  Palmerston, 
117,  118  ;  his  treatment  of  Earl  Rus 
sell,  131,  136,  137-143;  his  situation 
in  1863,  147-154 ;  his  note  of  Septem 
ber  5,  1863,  149,  153;  his  luck  in 
enemies,  159  ;  his  situation  in  1864, 
168;  in  1866,  183;  his  tastes,  184, 
201,  222,  233. 

Adams,  Charles  Francis  the  younger,  18, 
33,  75,  95,  182,  209,  210,  235,  254, 
257,  267. 


Adams,  President  John,  7,  12,  19,  25,  39, 
84,  89,  96,  293,  325. 

Adams,  President  John  Quincy,  7,  8,  9, 
10,  12,  384 ;  minister  to  Holland, 
his  marriage,  13  ;  senator  and  minister 
to  Russia,  14  ;  minister  to  England  and 
Secretary  of  State,  14;  in  Congress,  14; 
death  and  funeral  of,  15-17  ;  his  feuds, 
19  ;  his  character,  22,  37,  42,  89,  95 ; 
his  relation  to  W.  H.  Seward,  88  ;  his 
likeness  to  Earl  Russell,  144  ;  his  diary, 
343. 

Adams,  John  Quincy  the  younger,  18,  210. 

Adams,  Louisa  Catherine  Johnson  (wife  of 
John  Quincy  Adams),  7,  10,  11,  12- 
15,  34,  36. 

Adams,  Louisa  Catherine  (Mrs.  Charles 
Kuhn),  18,  28,  72,  73,  250,  251. 

Adams,  Sam.,  17. 

Agassiz,  Alexander,  45,  203,  267,  268,  302. 

Agassiz,  Louis,  49,  197,  267. 

Alabama  Case,  129,  130,  132,  144,  145, 
151,  153,  248. 

Alaric,  419. 

Alexander  I,  Tsar,  96,  384. 

Alexander  II,  Tsar,  384, 

Alexander  III,  Tsar,  384,  405. 

Alexeieff,  Viceroy,  404. 

Alley,  John  B.,  40,  41. 

Amiens  cathedral,  337,  381,  421,  430. 

Anaradjpura,  323. 

Anarchism,  300  ;  schools  of,  354,  355,  356, 
432  ;  philosophy  of,  377,  378. 

443 


444 


INDEX 


Anderson,  Nicholas  Longworth,  46. 

Antietam,  battle  of,  133. 

Antwerp  in  1858,  61. 

Ara  Coeli,  church  of,   77,   181,  204,  245, 

297,  320,  412,  417,  434. 
Archimedes,  419. 
Argyll,    Duke  and   Duchess  of,   108,   130, 

131,  132. 
Arnold,  Matthew,  50,  92,  157,  165,  175, 

207,  313,  339,  411. 
Ashley,  Evelyn,  124. 
Assisi,  321,  421. 
Atkinson,  Edward,  210. 
Austen,  Jane,  368. 
Austria,  71. 


B 


Bacon,   Francis,   Lord  Verulam,   331,   375, 

395,  400,  423,  429. 
Badeau,  Adam,  228,  230. 
Baden  Baden,  181. 
Baireuth  in  1901,  353,  354. 
Balfour,  Arthur,  400,  402. 
Balzac,  Honore1,  50. 
Bancroft,  George,  277,  280. 
Bancroft,  John,  69. 
Bank  of  England  Restriction,  202. 
Barlow,  Francis  Channing,  182,  216. 
Barry,  Mme.  du,  341. 
Bartlett,  William  Francis,  182,  216. 
Bayard,  T.  F.,  289. 
Beaumont,  Lady  Margaret,  170. 
Beauvais,  Church  of  St.  Etienne,  412. 
Bebel,  Ferdinand  August,  371. 
Beesley,  Professor  E.  S.,  163. 
Beethoven,  67,  70,  72. 
Belligerency,  Recognition  of,  98,  128,  132. 
Berkeley,  Bishop,  378. 
Berlin  in  1858,  62-68,  358,  384. 
Bethel,     Richard    Lord    Westbury,     128, 

152. 

Bismarck,  Karl  Otto  von,  65,  252. 
Elaine,  James  G.,  226,  243,  244,  281,  289, 

310. 

Bluebeard,  201. 
Boer  War,  307,  324,  325. 


Boston,  1,  2,  3,  7,  12,  16,  29,  35,  42,  211, 
234,  295  ;  intellectual  standard  of,  22, 
24,  32,  156,  209-210  ;  resources  of, 
31  ;  morals  of,  33  ;  newspapers  of,  75, 
210  ;  temper  of,  366,  368. 

Boston  &  Albany  Railroad,  3. 

Boutwell,  George  S.,  40,  228,  234,  236, 
237,  238,  242,  244,  259,  284. 

Bowles,  Sam.,  221. 

Branly  coherer,  333,  336. 

Bravay,  contractor  for  rams,  154. 

Bretton  in  Yorkshire,  170. 

Brice,  Calvin,  280,  289,  300. 

Bright,  John,  107,  108,  247  ;  his  character, 
158-165. 

Brooke,  Stopford,  186,  190. 

Brooks,  Peter  Chardon,  7,  8,  11,  17  ;  his 
death,  18;  his  children,  18. 

Brooks,  Phillips,  45,  203,  275. 

Brougham,  Lord,  107,  158,  166,  171. 

Brunnow,  Baron,  115,  116. 

Bryant,  William  Cullen,  212. 

Bryce,  James,  264. 

Buckle,  H.  T.,  191,  262. 

Buildwas  Abbey,  198. 

Bull  Run,  first  battle  of,  101  ;  second  battle 
of,  111,  112,  131. 

Bulwer,  Sir  Edward  Lytton,  31,  174. 

Bunker  Hill,  15. 

Bunyan,  John,  422. 

Burdett  Coutts,  Miss,  100,  171. 

Burlingame,  Anson,  40,  86. 

Burnham,  D.  H.,  298. 

Butler,  B.  F.,  117,  118,  142. 

Buxton,  Sir  Fowell,  159. 

Byron,  Lord,  313. 


Calvin,  422. 

Cameron,  J.   Donald,  290,  294,   310,  318, 

337,  373. 

Cameron,  Mrs.  J.  D.,  290,  318. 
Campbell,  Lord,  171. 
Canada,  in  1862,  132. 
Canning,  George,  150,  179. 
Capitalism,  296,  300,  301. 


INDEX 


445 


Caracciolo,  Prince,  79. 

Carlyle,  Thomas,   26,  31,  50,  70,  113,  159, 

165,  166,  174,  240,  313  ;  hisTeufels- 

drock,  361. 
Carthage,  298. 
Cassini,  Count,  Russian   Ambassador,  327, 

343,  383,  385,  405. 
Castiglioue,  Madame  de,  172. 
Cavendish,  Frederick,  108. 
Cecil,  Lord  Robert,  (Marquess  of  Salisbury), 

128,  204,  224. 
Cestradon  Philippi,    Port    Jackson   shark, 

199,  350. 

Chamberlain,  Joseph,  325,  406. 
Chandler,  Joseph  R.,  minister  to  Naples,  79. 
Channing,  William  Ellery,  22. 
Chartres,  cathedral  of,  324,  336,  339,  374, 

381,  410,  412,  421. 
Chase,  Salmon  P.,  217,  241. 
Chester,  59,  205. 

Chicago  Exposition,  290,  296,  299,  308. 
Child,  Professor  F.  J.,  267. 
China,  341,  342— "open  door,"  382,  385. 
Church,  the,  375,  377,  380,  418. 
Civil  Law,  59,  60,  62,  63,  66,  69,  73,  83, 

94,  312,  384. 

Civil  Service  Reform,  224,  256. 
Clay,  Cassius  M. ,  97. 
Clay,  Henry,  3,  37,  87. 
Clerk  Maxwell,  James,  389,  395. 
Cleveland,  President  Grover,  280,  283,  288, 

289,  290,  305,  326. 
Coal  in  1901,  362,  363,  428,  430,  432. 
Cobden,   Richard,   107,  108,  158,  165  ;  his 

opinion  of  Palmerston,  114. 
Cockburn,  Sir  Alexander,  159. 
Cockran,  Bourke,  289. 
Collier,  Sir  Robert,  his  opinion  in  the  Ala 
bama  case,  129,  144. 
Cologne  in  1901,  362. 
Columbus,  Christopher,  334,  422,  429. 
Comet  of  1843,  427. 
Compass,  the,  421,  430. 
Comte,  Auguste,  49,  195,  262,  419,  430. 
Comus,  Milton's  Mask  of,  348. 
Concord,  31,  51,  52. 
Congress  in  1869,  226,  227,  267. 


Conkling,  Roscoe,  87,  219,  226,  243,  244, 

344. 

Constantine  the  Great,  334,  418,  423,  437. 
Constantinople,  315,  421,  422. 
Copernicus,  334,  429. 
Cora  Pearl,  181. 
Coutances,  309,  409. 
Cox,  Jacob  D.,  228,  231,  235,  241,  245. 
Crookes,  Sir  William,  394,  396. 
Cross,  the,  332,  334,  396,  418-422. 
Crowninshield,  B.  W.,  69. 
Cuba,  290,  304,  305,  307. 
Cunard  steamers,  3,  42,  59,  96,  298. 
Cunliffe,  Sir  Robert,  164. 
Curie,  Madame,  396,  400. 
Curtis,  Ben.  R.,  217. 
Cushiug,  Caleb,  141. 


D 


Daimler  motor,  332,  359. 

Dalton,  John,  429. 

Dana,  Richard  H.,  23,  24,  28. 

Dante,  335,  336. 

Darwin,  Charles,  174,  194,  195,  231,  272, 

297,  395. 

Darwinism,  200,  247,  347,  348,  349,  374. 
Davis,  Henry  Winter,  86. 
Davis,  J.  C.  Bancroft,  239. 
Davis,  Jefferson,  98,  135,  140,  142,  159. 
Declaration  of  Paris,  128. 
Degrand,  P.  P.  F.,  15. 
Delane,  John  T.,  103,  104,  107,  116,  146- 

147,  148. 

Dennett,  J.  R.,  260. 
Derby,  Earl  of,  168. 
De  Retz,  Cardinal,  240. 
Descartes,  Rene,  340,  374,  378,  403,  423, 

429,  432. 

De  Tocqueville,  165. 
Dewey,  Admiral  George,  222. 
Dickens,  Charles,  28,  31,  50,  60,  156,  157, 

174,  368. 

Diocletian,  417,  437. 
Disraeli,    Benjamin,    141,    142,    168,    204, 

247. 


446 


INDEX 


Dixwell,  Epes  Sargent,  44. 

Doyle,  Sir  Francis,  164,  178. 

Dresden,  69,  73. 

Drontjem,  360,  361. 

Dudley,   Thomas  H.,  Consul  at  Liverpool, 

111. 

Dumas,  Alexander,  80. 
Diisseldorf,  362. 
Dynamo,  the,  298,  332,  374. 


E 


Eaton  Hall,  60,  205. 

Eddy,  Spencer,  315. 

Edinburg  Review,  166,  223,  224,  245,  249. 

Edward  VII,  (See  Prince  of  Wales). 

Egypt,  315. 

Eliot,  Charles,  President  of  Harvard  Col 
lege,  253,  260,  261,  264,  265. 

Emancipation  Proclamation,  133. 

Emerson,  R.  W.,  22,  28,  50,  52,  122,  237. 

Emmons,  S.  F.,  269,  273. 

Engrand  le  Prince,  window  by,  412. 

Ephesus,  315,  320. 

Estes  Park,  270, 

Euclidian  Geometry,  399. 

Eugene,  rival  of  Theodosius,  418. 

Evarts,  William  M.,  23,  235,  281,  326  ;  in 
London  in  1863,  128,  157,  171,  177  ; 
in  Washington  in  1868,  212,  213,  217, 
220  ;  in  1877,  277  ;  his  opinion  of 
New  England  politics,  367. 

Evening  Post,  New  York,  212,  293. 

Everett,  Edward,  his  Eulogy  on  J.  Q. 
Adams,  16  ;  his  career,  18-19,  23,  176  ; 
his  distinction,  22,  26  ;  President  of 
Harvard  College,  260. 

Everett,  William,  177. 

Evolution,  doctrine  of,  77,  231,  349,  350. 


Faneuil  Hall,  16. 
Faraday,  Michael,  346,  374. 
Faust,  or  Fust,  Johann,  422. 
Faust,  Goethe's,  379,  392. 


Felton,  President  C.  C.,  52. 

Fiji,  278,  279. 

Fish,    Hamilton,    Secretary  of  State,   228, 

231,  235,  238,  239. 
Fisk,  Jim,  235,  259. 
Fiske,  John,  260,  265,  267. 
Forain,  166. 
Force,   definition  of,   374,  378,  394,   399, 

400,  414. 

Ford,  Worthington,  306. 
Forster,  William  E.,  102,  106,   132,  158, 

163  ;  his  influence,  107  ;   in  the  cabi 
net,  247,  248. 
France,    international    relation    with,    326, 

370,  383. 
Franklin,    Benjamin,    39,    126,    291,    424, 

429. 

Freeman,  Edward  A.,  360. 
Free  Soil  party,  organized,  20,  217  ;  socially 

ostracised  in  Boston,  24  ;  character  of, 

25,  40,  88. 

Frewen,  Moreton,  300. 
Frothingham,  Rev.  Nathaniel,  1,  18,  19,  28. 
Frothingham,  Octavius,  28. 
Froude,  J.  A.,  175,  191. 
Fryston,  in  Yorkshire,  102,  106,  118-124. 
Fulton,  Robert,  424. 


G 


Galileo,  334,  400,  403,  422,  423,  429,  432. 

Gallatin,  Albert,  291,  382. 

Garfield,  James  A.,  226,  243,  244,  245, 
283. 

Garibaldi,  Giuseppe,  77,  78,  81,  230,  320  ; 
his  reception  at  Stafford  House,  172. 

Garrison,  W.  L.,  23,  34,  41. 

Gaskell  (see  Milnes). 

Geikie,  James,  349. 

Geneva  Conference,  123,  151. 

Geneva,  Lake  of,  251,  373. 

George  III,  325. 

Germany,  as  education,  51,  65,  70  ;  in  pol 
itics,  317,  383  ;  in  thought,  397. 

Gettysburg,  battle  of,  146,  148. 

Gibbon,  Edward,  77,  78,  79,  262 ,  337, 
338,  434. 


INDEX. 


447 


Gibbs,  Wolcott,  329,  393,  394. 

Giordano  Bruno,  422. 

Glacial  theories,  196,  349. 

Gladstone,  W.  K,  129,  132,  133,  145, 
148,  156,  157,  .158,  159,  165,  178, 
227,  252  ;  his  attitude  towards  recogni 
tion,  134,  138-143  ;  his  Newcastle 
speech,  7  Oct.,  1863,  134-5,  136,  137  ; 
his  opinion  of  politicians,  154. 

Glass-windows,  324,  411,  412. 

Godkin,  E.  L.,  212,  240,  243,  293,  294. 

Gorham,  Nathaniel,  38. 

Gorki,  358. 

Gould,  Jay,  207,  234-237,  245,  259. 

Grant,  President  U.  8.,  149,  221,  in  1868-9, 
225-231,  234-236,  238,  239,  243,  245, 
258,  259,  267,  277,  291,  337. 

Granville,  Lord,  129,  159,  175,  281  ;  his 
attitude  towards  recognition,  133,  138, 
142. 

Gray,  Justice  Horace,  93. 

Greek  fire,  421,  430. 

Green,  John  Richard,  186. 

Greville  Memoirs,  166. 

Grey,  Sir  George,  138,  159. 

Grote,  George,  175. 

Grote,  Mrs.  George,  166. 

Gu6rin,  Maurice  de,  245. 

Gunpowder,  421,  424,  430. 

Gurney,  E.  W.,  255,  261,  267. 

Gutenberg,  422,  429. 


H 


Hseckel,  Ernst,  376,  397. 

Hague,  Arnold,  269. 

Hallam,  Arthur,  178. 

Halsted,  Murat,  221. 

Hamilton,  Duke  of,  181. 

Hammerfest,  360,  361,  363. 

Hampton,  Mrs.  Frank,  her  death,  113. 

Hanna,  Mark,  203,  311. 

Harrison,    President   Benjamin,   280,    283, 

289,  290,  326. 
Harte,  Bret,  224,  275,  336. 
Hartford  Convention,  17. 
Hartmann,  Karl  v.,  378. 


Harvard   College,    45-57,    253-259,    260- 
268,  300,  367,  379. 

Harvey,  Peter,  26,  40. 

Harvey,  William,  429. 

Hasty  Pudding  Club,  57. 

Hay,  John,  53,  139,  182,  203,  226,  275;. 
at  Washington  in  1861,  90 ;  in  1879, 
277,  281;  in  1892,  280,  282,  283- 
286,  290 ;  in  1894,  305 ;  in  1896,  310, 
311 ;  in  1897,  ambassador  to  England, 
314,  315,  316,  317,  318;  in  1898, 
Secretary  of  State,  318,  320;  in  1900, 
325,  326,  327,  342  ;  in  1901,  342- 
344,  345,  361,  363,  364,  365,  366 ;  in 
1902,  370-372  ;  in  1903,  382,  383- 
386;  in  1904,  407;  in  1905,  439,  440 ; 
his  death,  441. 

Hay,  Mrs.  John,  315,  320,  407,  439. 

Hayes,     President     Rutherford     B.,     283, 
406. 

Hayward,  Abraham,  107,  116,  175. 

Hegel,  67,  129,  355,  356,  393. 

Heine,  Heinrich,  63,  65,  66. 

Helmholtz,  H.  L.  F.,  402. 

Herald,  The  New  York,  212. 

Herbert,  Sir  Michael,   British  Ambassador, 
382,  388. 

Herbert,  Lady,  388. 

Hewitt,  Abram,  256,  281,  286,  326. 

Higginson,  Henry  L.,  33,  182,  203. 

Higginson,  J.  J.,  69. 

Hildreth,  Richard,  his  history,  89. 

Hippo,  Augustine,  Bishop  of,  420. 

Hitt,  Reynolds,  373. 

Hoar,  Attorney  General  E.   R.,  222,  231, 
235,  240,  245. 

Hoar,  Sam.,  222,  233. 

Hofer,  Billy,  306. 

Holland,  Sir  Henry,  112,  176. 

Holleben,   Theodore  v.,  German  Ambassa 
dor,  327,  343,  383. 

Holloway,  art-dealer,  187,  188.. 

Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell,  22,  122. 

Holmes,  Justice  O.  W.,  45. 

Hooper,  Samuel,  220. 

Horace,  drawings  of  figure  in  the  Parnasso, 
188. 

Horse-shoe  crab,  Limulus,  199,  200,  351. 


448 


INDEX 


Horton,  Dana,  292. 

Howe,  Timothy,  Senator,  254. 

Howells,  William  Dean,  203. 

Hughes,  Tom,  109. 

Hugo,  Victor,  121,  122,  123,  172. 

Hunt,  Holman,  186. 

Hunt,  Richard,  297,  298,  299,  337. 

Hunt,  William,  184,  185,  275,  337. 

Huxley,  T.  H.,  195,  198. 


Iddings,  J.  P.,  306. 

Inertia,   laws  of,  in  Russia,  358,  359,  360  ; 

in  America,   387-392  ;  definitions   of, 

386. 

Initials,  the,  73,  74. 
Inverlochy  Castle,  373. 
Isis,  338,  425. 
Italy,  72,  73-80,  181. 


K 


Kaiser  Wilhelm  I,  65. 

Kaiser  Wilhelm  II,  372,  383,  386,  406. 

Kant,  Emmanuel,  51,  67,  393,  399. 

Karnak,  315,  320. 

Kelvin,  Lord,  333,  350,  394. 

Kent,  county  of,  318. 

Khilkoff,  Prince,  358,  384,  389. 

Kinetic  theories,  355,  377,  378,  395. 

King,  Clarence,  53,  74,  234,  280,  281  ;  in 
1871,  270-273,  275,  286;  in  1893, 
302,  303,  305,  345  ;  his  death,  364, 
365. 

King,  Preston,  86. 

Kinglake,  A.  W.,  191. 

Kipling,  Rudyard,  224,  276,  278,  279. 

Kropotkine,  his  anarchism,  355,  358. 

Kuhn  (See  Adams,  Louisa  Catherine). 


Jackson,  President  Andrew,  19,  23. 

James,  G.  P.  R.,  59. 

James,  Henry,  140,  203,  275,  278. 

James,  William,  267. 

Japan,  323,  385. 

Jaures,  371. 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  39,  284,  382. 

Jenner,  Edward,  424. 

Johnson,  President  Andrew,  181,  213,  214, 

226,  240,  327. 
Johnson,  Joshua,  first  American  Consul  in 

London,  12. 

Johnson,  Dr.  Samuel,  28,  61,  294. 
Johnson,   Thomas,   Governor  of  Maryland, 

12,  13. 

Johnston,  Humphreys,  323. 
Joinville,  Sieur  de,  412,  422. 
Jones,  Senator  John  P.,  300. 
Jowett,  Benjamin,  175. 
Judkins,  captain  of  the  "Persia,"   59. 


La  Farge,  John,  53,  203,  275,  276,  277, 

298,  322-325,  337,  411. 
La  Fayette  Square,   277,   284,   310,   320, 

328,  366. 

La  Fontaine's  Fables,  199,  359. 
Lairds,  shipbuilders  at  Liverpool,  145,  152, 

160,  161. 
Lamar,  L.  Q.  C.,  159,  214,  243,  282  ;  his 

story  of  Roebuck,  160-162. 
Landor,  Walter  Savage,  122. 
Langley,  S.  P.,  329,  331-333. 
La  Place,  Pierre  Simon,  429. 
Lee,  Robert  E.,  46,  92,  131,  133,  230. 
Lee,  William  Henry  Fitzhugh,  46-48. 
Legal  Tender  case,  217,  218,  240,  241,  242. 
Lewis,    Sir   George   Cornewall,    136,    137, 

139,  140,  159. 
Libri,  Count,  189. 
Limulus,  199,  200,  351. 
Lincoln,   President   Abraham,   83,   87,   88, 

90,   103,    104,    112,    178,    180,    258, 

284,  285,  321,  367. 
Lindsay,  W.  S.,  160,  161. 


INDEX 


449 


Lodge,  George  Cabot,  352,  354,  355,  356. 
Lodge,  Mrs.  George  Cabot,  352,  388. 
Lodge,  H.  Cabot,  290,  300,  309,  311,  354, 

358,  366-368. 
Lodge,   Mrs.  H.  C.,  290,  308,  309,  320, 

353,  388. 
London,  in  1858,  60,  61  ;  in  1861,  99  ;  in 

1868,  204,  205  ;  in  1870,  247,  248, 

249  ;  in  1892,  276  ;  in  1897,  314  ;  in 

1898,  316-318. 

Longfellow,  H.  W.  22,  24,  27,  28,  50,  122. 
Lome,  Marquis  of,  109. 
Lourdes,  Virgin  of,  335,  339. 
Lovejoy,  Owen,  86. 
Lowe,  Robert,  175. 
Lowell,  James  Russell,  his  Hosea  Biglow, 

28,  280  ;  professor  at  Harvard  College, 

50-52,  54,  70,  73,  122,  225,  267,  268  ; 

bis  opinion  of  John  Bright,  164,  165. 
Lucretius,  de  Rerum  Natura,  335,  402. 
Ludlow  shale,  197,  200,  348. 
Lunt,  Rev.  W.  P.,  16. 
Luther,  422. 
Lyell,   Sir  Charles,   109,    194,    202,    269, 

272,  347,  348,  349;  his    "Principles 

of  Geology,"  195,    196 ;    his  Glacial 

theories,  197,  349. 
Lyndhurst,  Lord,  171. 
Lyons,  Lord,  136. 


M 


Macaulay,  Lord,  26,  31,  174,  191,  224. 

McCulloch,  Hugh,  215,  216. 

Mach,  Ernst,  376,  397,  402. 

McKim,  C.  F.,  275,  298. 

McKinley,    President   William,    203,    226, 

310,  311,  321,  326,  343,  344,  347,  370; 

his  death,  361,  364. 
McVeagh,  Wayne,  286. 
Madison,  President  James,   158,  284,  382. 
Magnet,  the,  346,  347. 
Maine,  sinking  of  the,  315. 
Maine,  Sir  Henry,  262,  322. 
Manchuria,  307,  404. 
Mann,  Horace,  28. 
Manning,  Cardinal,  178. 
29 


Marc  Antonio,  Rafael's  engraver,  189. 

Marshall,  John,  39. 

Marx,  Karl,  26,  49,  60,  195,  307,  331. 

Mason,  James  M.,  102,  159,  177,  344. 

Matter,  definition  of,  400. 

Maupassant,  Guy  de,  224. 

Mexico,  140,  306,  310. 

Michael  Angelo,  287,  339,  429. 

Miles,  Nelson  A.,  182. 

Mill,  John  Stuart,  26,  60,  108,  165,  431. 

Milnes  Gaskell,  Charles,  177,  204,  278. 

Milnes  Gaskell,  James,  177-179,  247. 

Milnes  Gaskell,  Mrs.  James,  179,  247. 

Milnes,  Richard  Monckton,  (Lord  Hough- 
ton),  102,  160,  169,  178 ;  his  social 
influence,  106,  107 ;  his  breakfasts, 
175,  248  ;  as  host  at  Fryston,  118-124  ; 
in  1863,  146  ;  on  Gladstone,  158. 

Mills,  Clark,  219. 

Mommsen,  Theodor,  78. 

Monroe,  James,  234. 

Mont  St.  Michel,  309,  381. 

Moran,  Benjamin,  Secretary  of  Legation,  95, 
111,  125. 

Morgan,  Junius,  104. 

Morgan,  Pierpont,  203,  303. 

Morley,  John,  his  Life  of  Gladstone,  138, 
154. 

Moscow,  354,  357,  358. 

Motion,  definition  of,  400. 

Motley,  John  Lothrop,  22,  26,  173,  174. 
206,  207,  240,  436  ;  minister  to  Eng 
land,  238,  247. 

Mount  Vernon,  38. 

Murchison,  Sir  Roderick,  198. 

Musset,  Alfred  de,  122. 


N 


Napoleon  I,  70,  429. 

Napoleon  III,  70,  71,  81,  248  ;  his  attempts 

at  intervention,    139,   140,   143,   160 ; 

in  1870,  252,  253. 

Nation,  The  New  York,  212,  217,  240. 
Nero  Claudius,  321,  365. 
New  England  character,  5,  6,  30,  46,  47, 

48. 


450 


INDEX 


Newcastle,  Duke  of,  133,  138. 

Newcomb,  Simon,  329. 

Newman,  Cardinal,  165. 

Newport,  210. 

Newton,  Sir  Isaac,  196,  328,  329,  374,  395, 

403,  410,  419,  423,  429,  432. 
New  York  in  1868,  206  ;  in  1904,  436. 
Niagara,  Cunard  steamer,  96,  278. 
Nicephorus  Phocas,   421. 
Nicolay,  John  G.,  281. 
Nob  Hill,  287. 
Nordhoff,  Charles,  221. 
Normandy,   309,  409. 
North  American   Review,   192,   202,   224  ; 

Character    of,    203,    212,    217,    258  ; 

editorship  of,  255,  267,  268,  309. 
North,  Lord,  150. 
Northanger  Abbey,  198. 
Norton,  Charles,  192. 
Norway,  360-362. 
Nuth,    Catherine,    mother   of   Mrs.    J.    Q. 

Adams,  12. 


O 


Odysseus,  314,  320. 

Okakura,  323. 

Oliphant,  Lawrence,  119,  120-124. 

Olney,  Richard,  289. 

Oxenstiern,  Chancellor,  84. 

Oxford,  Bishop  of  (Wilberforce),  160,  175. 


Paestum,  298. 

Palermo,  421;  in  1860,  79,  81;  in  1899, 

320. 

Paley's  Evidences,  200. 
Palfrey,  John   Gorham,   22,   28,   192  ;   his 

character,  23. 

Palgrave,  Sir  Francis,  185. 
Palgrave,   Francis  Turner,   166,   185,   186, 

187,  188,  190,  194,  248,  268. 
Palgrave,  W.  Gifford,  185. 
Palmer,  Captain,  U.  S.  N.,  79,  80. 


Palmerston,  Lord,  97,  145,  148,  163,  164, 
183,  204,  317  ;  his  attitude  towards  the 
rebellion,  98,  110  ;  his  reputation  in 
politics,  114,115,116  ;  his  note  of  June 
11,1862,117,118  ;  his  attitude  towards 
recognition,  131,  132,  133,  134,  135  ; 
his  treatment  of  Earl  Russell,  153. 

Palmerston,  Lady,  115,  116,  118. 

Pantheism,  375,  376. 

Paris  in  1860,  81,  82;  in  1870,  252,  253; 
in  1892,  276,  277  ;  in  1897,  314 ; 
Exposition  in  1900,  331-334;  in  1901, 
352,  353. 

Parker,  Theodore,  22,  23,  27,  34. 

Parkes,  Joseph,  103,  158. 

Parkman,  Francis,  285. 

Pascal,  Blaise,  374,  424. 

Patti,  Adelina,  173. 

Paunceforte,  Sir  Julian  (Lord),  326,  343  ; 
his  death,  382. 

Pearson,  Karl,  his  Grammar  of  Science, 
393-397,  399,  406,  432. 

Peking,  siege  of  Legations,  341,  342. 

Pendennis,  Arthur,  173,  196,  249. 

Pendleton,  Senator  George  H.,  256. 

Pennsylvania,  291,  292. 

Philippines,  317. 

Phillips,  Hallett,  305. 

Phillips,  Wendell,  23,  34. 

Plehve,  Mr.  de,  363  ;  assassination  of,  412. 

Pocahontas,  192. 

Poincare,  H.,  397,  398,  399,  403. 

Polk,  President  James  K.,  3,  10. 

Pompadour,  Mme.  de,  341. 

Pope,  Alexander,  28,  29. 

Port  Arthur,  404,  439. 

Porto  Rico,  317. 

Praxiteles,  339. 

Prescott,  W.  H.,  22,  26. 

Priestley,  Joseph,  424. 

Prince  Consort,  102,  169. 

Prince  of  Wales  (Edward  VII),  169,  204, 
247,  248. 

Psychology,  379,  380. 

Pteraspis,  197,  198,  199,  200,  202,  348. 

Pumpelly,  Raphael,  74,  393. 

Punch,  141,  160. 


INDEX 


451 


Puritans,  422. 
Purun  Dass,  438. 


Russia,  in  1862,   132  ;  in  1901,   354-360  ; 
in  1903,  384,  385  ;  in  1905,  439. 


Q 


Quincy,  Edmund,  23. 

Quincy,  President  Josiah,  11. 

Quincy,  6,  7,  10,  20,  35,  209,  294,  300  ; 

old  house  at,  8  ;  church,  11,  12,  16  ;  in 

1860,  83,  84  ;  bay,  199. 


R 


Radium,  salt  of,  333,  339,  346,  396,  400. 

Rafael  Sanzio,  187. 

Rams,  case  of  the  rebel,  135,  142. 

Ravenna,  310,  421,  430. 

Rawlins,  John  A.,  229,  231. 

Raymond,  Henry  J.,  86,  103,  212. 

Reclus,  Elisee,  307,  355. 

Reed,  curator  of  British  Museum,  188-190. 

Reed,  Thomas,  Speaker,  289. 

Reeve,  Henry,  107,  166,  223,  245,  249. 

Reid,  Whitelaw,  182,  203,  212. 

Renan,  Ernest,  50,  174. 

Rhine  in  1901,  362. 

Richardson,  H.  H.,  45,  53,  185,  203,  275, 
277,  298,  337. 

Rockhill,  W.  W.,  310,  315. 

Roentgen  rays,  400. 

Roebuck,  John  Arthur,  160-162. 

Rome,  in  1860,  75-79  ;  in  1865,  181  ;  in 
1868,  204  ;  in  1899,  320,  321. 

Roosevelt,  Theodore,  290,  311,  361  ;  presi 
dent,  365,  382,  391,  405,  406,  437. 

Roosevelt,  Mrs.  Theodore,  388,  409. 

Root,  Elihu,  343,  406. 

Rubens,  Peter  Paul,  61,  62,  339. 

Ruskin,  John,  165,  338. 

Russell,  Earl  (Lord  John),  his  attitude  in 

1861,  98,    99,    105,    108,    117  ;   in 

1862,  110  ;  in  1863,  144-154,  157  ; 
his   opinion   of  Palmerston,    114 ;   his 
political  morality,  128,  129,  130,  131, 
131,    132,    165  ;  his  attitude  towards 
recognition,  131,    133,    134-143 ;   his 
retreat,  183,  204. 


S 


Sac  and  Soc,  321, 

Saint  Ambrose,  321. 

Saint  Augustine,  321,  420,  422. 

Saint  Francis,  78,  321,  322. 

St.  Gaudens,  Augustus,  53,  275,  285,  287, 
298  ;  at  Paris,  337-339  ;  in  1904,  407. 

St.  Germain-en-Laye,  314. 

Saint  James's  Club,  100,  124,  249. 

St.  Louis,  Exposition  of  1904,  407-410. 

St.  Louis,  King  of  France,  422. 

Saint  Jerome,  327. 

Saint  Pantaleon  at  Troyes,  412. 

Saint  Peter's,  245,  430. 

Saint  Thomas,  island  of,  239. 

Saint  Thomas  Aquinas,  340,  375,  381,  399. 

Salem,  212. 

Samana  Bay,  239. 

Samoa,  278,  323. 

Sancta  Sofia,  315,  421,  430. 

San  Marco  at  Venice,  421,  430. 

Santiago  de  Cuba,  304. 

Sargent,  John  S.,  407. 

Savage,  James,  33-34. 

Schopenhauer,  355,  378,  424. 

Scott,  Captain  Robert  F.  438. 

Schurz,  Carl,  281. 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  31,  262. 

Scott,  Winfield,  48,  91. 

Seals,  dying,  438. 

Selborne,  Lord,  129. 

Senate  of  United  States,  in  1850,  36,  37  ; 
in  1860,  86,  87;  in  1900,  327;  in 
1901,  344,  347,  370. 

Seneca,  Lucius,  365. 

SeVigne1,  Madame  de,  308. 

Seward,  William  H.,  19,  23,  75,  104,  125, 
178,  238,  240  ;  at  Washington  in  1860- 
61,  86-89,  90  ;  his  reputation  in  Lon 
don,  103,  105,  112  ;  his  management 
of  foreign  affairs,  125,  126,  148,  149, 
150  ;  at  Washington  in  1868,  214. 

Shaftesbury,  Lord,  108,  159. 

Shakespeare,  367,  368,  441. 


452 


INDEX 


Shark,  Port  Jackson  ( Cestradon  Philippi), 
199,  350. 

Shelley,  287,  411. 

Sherman,  Senator  John,  290,  311,  312. 

Sherman,  General  Tecumseh,  213  ;  St.  Gau- 
dens'  statue  of,  337. 

Shropshire,  179,  197,  198,  199,  318,  373. 

Sicily  in  1860,  79-81,  320. 

Siluria,  198,  387. 

Silver  in  1893,  292-294,  300,  301. 

Slidell,  John,  102,  159. 

Smalley,  George,  171,  182. 

Smith,  Adam,  307. 

Smith,  Captain  John,  192. 

Smith,  Sydney,  174. 

Socrates,  376. 

Sohm,  Rudolph,  322. 

Somerset,  Duchess  Dowager  of,  101. 

Sophocles,  313. 

Sorrento,  181. 

Sothern,  E.  A.,  156. 

Spanish  war,  316,  318. 

Specie  payments,  202. 

Speck  v.  Sternburg,  Baron,  German  Ambas 
sador,  383. 

Spinoza,  195,  376,  399,  423. 

Splugen,  181. 

Spring  Rice,  Cecil,  290,  310. 

Stafford  House,  172. 

Stallo,  J.  B.,  Concepts  of  Modern  Science, 
329,  393,  394,  396. 

Stanley,  Lord  (Earl  of  Derby),  159. 

Stanley  of  Alderley,  Lord  and  Lady,  109, 
133. 

Stanley,  Lyulph  (Lord   Stanley   of  Alder- 
ley),  109. 

Stanton,  Edwin  M.,  148,  149. 

State,  Secretary  of,  his  isolation,  369,  370. 

State  House  in  Boston,  37. 

State  Street  in  Boston,  16,  17,  19,  20,  367. 

Statistics,  306,  307. 

Stelvio  Pass,  72,  73,  181. 

Stevenson,  Robert  Lewis,  120,  224,  279. 

Stickney,  Joseph  Trumbull,  352,  354. 

Stirling  of  Keir  (Sir  William  Stirling  Max 
well),  119-124. 

Stockholm,  358,  360. 

Storey,  Moorfield,  222. 


Story,  William,  78. 

Stubbs,  Bishop  and  Professor,  121. 

Sturgis,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Russell,  104. 

Suess,  Prof.  E.  D.,  Das  Antlitz  der  Erde, 
349. 

Sumner,  Charles,  his  character,  24,  25,  28, 
243,  244,  259  ;  elected  Senator,  40-42  ; 
in  Berlin,  63;  at  Washington  in  1860- 
61,  84,  85,  86,  87,  91,  92,  94,  95,  98, 
99  ;  at  Washington  in  1868,  218,  219, 
226  ;  in  1869,  235,  238,  239,  240. 

Sun,  the  New  York,  212. 

Surrenden  Dering,  318. 

Survey  of  Fortieth  Parallel,  270-273. 

Sutherland,  Duchess  Dowager  of,  101. 

Sweden,  358-360. 

Swinburne,  Algernon,  120-124,  172,  279, 
313. 

Syracuse,  in  Sicily,  320. 


T 


Tammany  Hall,  40. 

Taylor,  General  Dick,  171. 

Taylor,  President  Zachary,  37. 

Tennyson,  Alfred,  28,  31,  174,  194,  396. 

Terebratula,  197,  202,  431. 

Ternina,  Milka,  354. 

Tetons,  the,  305. 

Teutonic,  White  Star  steamer,  278. 

Thackeray,  W.  M.,  28,  31,  50,  60,  112, 

113,  156,  174. 
Theodosius,  418. 
Ticknor,  George,  22,  24,  26. 
Tilden,  Samuel  J.,  326. 
Times,   the  London,   103,    112,    128,   146, 

147,  168. 

Times,  the  New  York,  212. 
Tiryns,  315. 

Torrey,  Prof.  H.  W.  261. 
Tree  of  Jesse,  glass  window,  412. 
Trent  Affair,  102,  103,  106,  110,  128,  147. 
Trevelyan,  Sir  Charles  and  Lady,  109. 
Tribune,  the  New  York,  212,  242. 
Tricoupi,    Greek  minister  in  London,   116, 

124. 
Troyes,  412. 


INDEX 


453 


Tsar,  Alexander  I,  96,  384  ;  Alexander  II, 

384  ;  Alexander  III,  357,  372,  405. 
Turgot,  419,  430. 
Turkish  government,  154. 
Tyndall,  John,  195. 


U 


Uintah  mountains,  269,  273. 

Unitarian  clergy  of  Boston,   1,  16,   18,   22, 

27,  45. 
Unity,  376,  377,  378,  380,  389,  398,  413, 

425. 
Uriconium,  198. 


Van  Buren,  Martin,  20,  37. 

Vancouver,  306. 

Vanderbilt,  Commodore,  207. 

Venice,  297. 

Venus,  335,  336,  339,  402. 

Versailles,  264. 

Vicksburg,  surrender  of,  146,  148,  149. 

Victoria,   Queen,   32,    169,   172,   314  ;   her 

opinion  of  Lord  Palmerston,  114. 
Vigny,  Alfred  de,  313. 
Virgin,  the,  335,  338,  339,  374,  401,  409, 

410-413. 

Virginia,  types  of,  48  ;  in  1860-61,  89,  90. 
Volta,  429. 
Voltaire,  120,  368,  424. 


W 


Wagner,  Richard,  67,  353,  354. 
Walcott,  Charles  D.,  348. 
Walker,  Francis  A.,  216,  241,  242. 
Walker,  President  James,  22,  52,  54. 
Walpole,  Spencer,  his  Life  of  Earl  Russell, 

131. 

Ward,  Sam,  220,  245. 
Washburn,  Israel,  86. 
Washington,  George,  38,  39,  40,  225,  226, 

231,  293,  300,  325,  367. 


Washington,   city  of,    in    1850,   35-38  ;  in 

1860,  84,  92,  146  ;  in  1868,  211-220, 

222,  223  ;  in  1869,  233,  257-259  ;  in 

1884,    247  ;    in  1892,  279,  310 ;    in 

1900,  382. 

Watt,  James,  424,  429. 
Watterson,  Henry,  221. 
Webster,  Daniel,  19,  20,  23,  25,  26,  28, 

37,  40,  87,  128. 
Weed,   Thurlow,    40  ;  in  London  in  1863, 

126-128,  129, 157. 
Wells,  David  A.,  245. 
Wenlock  Abbey,  179,   197-200,  253,  310, 

348. 
Westbury,    Lord    (Richard    Bethel),    128, 

130,  152. 

Wharton,  Francis,  260. 
Whistler,  James  McNeil,  190,  323,  324,  337. 
White,  Stanford,  275,  298,  337. 
Whitman,  Walt,  336. 
Whitney,  Professor  J.  D.,  269. 
Whitney,  W.  C.,  203,  257,  281,  289,  303, 

304,  326. 

Wilde,  Hamilton,  78. 
Wilson,  Charley,  Secretary  of  Legation,  95, 

111. 

Wilson,  Henry,  40. 
Winthrop,  Robert  C.,  23,  26. 
Witte,  Mr.  de,  358,  363,  384,  389,  404. 
Wolcott,  Edward,  289. 
Wolsey,  Cardinal,  319. 
Woman,  American,  336,  387-392. 
Woolner,  Thomas,  186,  187,  190. 
Wordsworth,   William,  29. 
Wrekin,  the,  179,  198. 
Wright,  Chauncey,  260. 
Wynn,  Miss  Charlotte,  179,  247. 


Yellowstone,  305. 
Yorkshire,  178. 


Zeno,  340.  400. 


.5 

All 


